Technology-focused RIA startup
On Tuesday, the New York-based firm announced Vamsi Yadlapati as its newest board addition. Yadlapati most recently served as managing director and co-head of M&A at Focus Financial Partners.
According to the company, Yadlapati's expertise in cultivating advisory firms will bolster Savvy's ability to offer marketing, compliance and back-office solutions to its advisors. Since leaving Focus, Yadlapati has remained active in the industry by sitting on a number of boards and serving as a consultant and advisor to "many of the largest RIA transactions that have come to the market."
"Being at the forefront of innovation is where I thrive, and I am excited to once again be a part of a promising new venture with Savvy," Yadlapati said in a statement. "The team's intelligent approach to modernizing the industry resonated with me right away and I'm confident that, working together, we can shape the advisory industry for the better."
Ritik Malhotra, co-founder and CEO of Savvy, told Financial Planning that he first connected with Yadlapati in 2021 via one of the company's lead investors as it was getting off the ground.
A year later, they two agreed to speak on a more formal basis, and began to speak for about an hour each month so that the new CEO could gather guidance and advice from the M&A leader.
"And then finally, after almost six plus months of that, we said let's maybe formalize this even further," Malhotra said. "It's really getting his experience from both running the Focus M&A team which is notorious and kind of built the industry, and learning all the things that worked and what didn't. Over the years of building companies, one of the things you learn is that there's no extra points for doing things yourself. So I think we get a decade-plus of that experience in a very short amount of time so we can avoid the pitfalls."
Savvy's addition of Yadlapati to its advisory board is the latest announcement from the startup that has hit the ground running since its founding in July 2021. In April, Savvy launched
Savvy has also attracted backing from prominent venture capital firms including Index Ventures, Thrive Capital, The House Fund and Brewer Lane Ventures. The firm secured $18 million in funding in under a year, including an $11 million series A-1 fundraise in November 2022.
"Savvy is at the forefront of driving meaningful change in an industry that has been stagnant for too long," Mark Goldberg, general partner at Index Ventures, said in a statement. "We are confident that with Vamsi's expertise, Savvy will continue to push boundaries and redefine the industry for years to come."
Commenting on what feels like the "overnight success" of his company, Malhotra told Financial Planning that he tries to keep their rate of growth in perspective while also remembering that it is by design.
"I think we often get tied up into, you know, how do we go faster? How do we make sure that we're building the right products for our advisors? And how do we kind of continue executing?" he said. "It has been kind of surprising to see how quickly we have been able to grow, but It's not by accident … the pace that we wanted to operate at was to go very quickly because we said this is such a burning opportunity. And if we can make something that's very compelling here and bring on the right folks at the same time, we can take advantage of this opportunity and also provide something that's much needed in the industry.
"So it's always a good reflection to see how far we've come in a short amount of time."
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