XY Planning Network’s founders are seeing momentum building behind their tech tools.
In August, Alan Moore and Michael Kitces introduced XY Investment Solutions, an investing platform for the young advisor network. Now they’ve landed $500,000 in seed funding for AdvicePay, a payment product they
But Moore, also co-founder and CEO of AdvicePay, denies any master plan to build a suite of advisor products.
“These are entirely separate solutions,” he says. “XYPN exists to serve a very specific segment of advisors who want to serve Gen X and Gen Y clients, for whom the XYIS solution was very important.
“While AdvicePay did start out as another niche solution for XYPN advisors as well, the interest we received from the broader financial advisor community is what led us to raise capital, and offer it entirely separately as a standalone service.”
AdvicePay allows all fee-only advisors to bill and collect fees directly from a client’s credit card or bank account through Automated Clearing House, the company says. Traditionally, these advisors file paper checks to clients on a recurring basis.
AdvicePay provides an efficient way of billing for clients who “don’t have investment accounts and will be paying financial planning fees from their income instead,” Moore notes.
The payment product also avoids triggering custody audit requirements for advisors, who have no access to clients’ private payment information. All payments and changes in billing need to be pre-approved by clients.
“We already have a waiting list of RIAs outside the XYPN community who want to use AdvicePay, and are actively fielding inquiries from the broker-dealer community about how their hybrid advisors can use AdvicePay to charge standalone and retainer financial planning fees as well,” Moore adds.
The seed funding round was led by Goodworks Ventures and Front Street Capital, although the majority of the funding came from financial advisors, the company says.
AdvicePay is currently in live-beta mode, with over 250 active users and more on a waiting list. Moore added that there are over 530 advisors in XYPN using the TAMP they launched too.
In August, XYPN
