California-headquartered robo-advisory platform Wealthfront is reportedly mulling business divestment at a valuation of around $1.5bn.
The firm has hired a financial adviser to explore the options for sale, Bloomberg reported citing people familiar of the development.
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According to the sources, Wealthfront’s potential buyers include banks and special purpose acquisition companies.
They also added that the robo-adviser is yet to finalise its decision on the sale and could choose to stay independent.
Wealthfront did not comment on the news.
Founded in 2008 by Andy Rachleff and Dan Carroll, Wealthfront provides financial planning, and investment management via its platform.
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By GlobalDataThe firm, which also offers banking-related services, recently expanded into other financial services such as cash accounts and payments services.
According to its website, the company has around 450,000 users on its platform.
In 2018, it raised $75m in a funding round led by New York-based investment firm Tiger Global Management.
This financing round, backed by investors including Benchmark Capital, DAG Ventures, and Index Ventures among others, valued the firm at $500m.
Robo-advisers, which charge low fees and make algorithm-driven trading decisions, have overhauled the traditional asset and wealth management space.
Some of the traditional players, who largely use their expertise to manage wealth, have not forayed into robo-advisory to keep up with the race. These include investment giants such as Charles Schwab and brokerages including Morgan Stanley.
Latest moves by other robo-advisers
Last month, Korean robo-adviser Fount closed a $33.4m Series C round to fund the further development of its machine learning-based platform and the hiring of new resources.
In May this year, Canadian robo-adviser Wealthsimple has raised $610m (C$750m) in a funding round, taking its valuation to $4bn (C$5bn).
In April, Singaporean robo-adviser StashAway expanded its presence to Hong Kong following its entry to the UAE market in November last year.
