www.wealth-initiative.com

Founders: Douglas Azar and Daniela Galeote

Founded in Zurich in November 2015

Short description:

Platform fostering synergies within wealth management institutions’ client base in the field of real estate, art, passion investments and direct equity.

What we do: 

WealthInitiative is a secured platform allowing Private Banks and Family Offices to share network of deals on behalf of their High Net Worth clients in the fields of real estate, art, passion investments (classic cars, yachts, aircrafts, rare watches, fine wine, coins, stamps, etc…) and direct equity. The platform is first an internal tool, aimed at Institutions exploiting synergies among their own clients (phase I). It will also enable at a later stage institutions to reach out to each other, where assets are shared externally among members of the platform community providing limitless opportunities (phase II). 

Markets:

The total product market (yearly) turnover is around USD 2 Trillion dollars with the following breakdown: real estate represents around USD 610bn per year, art volume is around USD 50 Bn per year, passion investments represents approximately USD 300 Bn yearly turnover and small to medium size direct equity investments would represents around USD 1 Tr per year.

In terms of customers, there are around 250 potential medium to large wealth management institutions, around 15,000 family offices and 150,000 independent asset managers or private wealth advisors.

Number of employees:

It is a team of 4 people: CEO (based in Zurich), CTO (based between Zurich and London), COO (based in Paris) and the Chief Commercial Officer (based in Singapore).

Fundings:

First round of family and friends (CHF 50,000). Second round planned for Q2 2017

Awards:

Part of the F10 Accelerator program (November 2016 till April 2017)

Why Switzerland is a great place to be a fintech startup:

There is great fintech startup community as well as great support from associations and clubs. Switzerland is also the world leader in banking and finance, providing a great hub for innovation in the sector. Following a late start, the sector is now in full speed and achieving significant milestones.