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FTC, Capital Markets, Global


Brooks Gibbins The Outsider

Published:

Feb 03, 2018


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Posted In:

FTC, Capital Markets, Global

Published:

Feb 03, 2018


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With trillions of dollars in client assets still being managed by legacy systems designed before the dot.com era, it was only a matter of time before outside investors saw the potential for financial technology to disintermediate the industry.

That's what attracted Brooks Gibbins, 45, to the industry when he founded FinTech Collective with his partner, Gareth Jones, in 2012. The venture capital firm has been one of the most active early-stage fintech investors over the past five years, seeding some of the biggest names on the adviser fintech scene.

When the two first looked at wealth management, they wondered how the industry could sustain charging 150 to 200 basis points for active management when digital advisers were approximating outcomes at a fraction of the cost.

"In the next five to 10 years, you're going to have robot-assisted advisers, and human-assisted robots," Mr. Gibbins said. "We really looked at that and the role of the adviser and thought that it was going to be a space where you're going to see a lot of retooling."

FinTech Collective dove into the industry with investments in Quovo, a company that provides data aggregation and analytics for advisers and fintech companies, and NextCapital, an institutional robo-advice platform that now counts John Hancock Retirement Plan Services, Transamerica, State Street Global Advisors and Russell Investments among its roster of clients.

Mr. Gibbins took an active role in the early days of NextCapital, introducing co-founder Rob Foregger to other capital investors and aiding in board construction.

Mr. Gibbins said that while many VC firms got caught up in the hype surrounding the sleek user interfaces of direct-to-consumer robo-advisers, he wanted FinTech Collective's investments to focus on deeper questions, such as how technology could improve yield on assets. FinTech Collective's portfolio also includes Artivest, Openfolio and Vestwell.

Mr. Gibbons believes technology is in the "super early" days on the retirement side of financial planning and will soon have its moment in the sun.

"Robo was super interesting in 2015 and 2016, and financial planning was hot last year," he said. "Retirement we'll hear a lot more about in 2018."

In the next five to 10 years, you're going to have robot-assisted advisers, and human-assisted robots.

Brooks Gibbins, Managing Partner at Fintech Collective

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