Tech Topics In This Article: Atlanta Ventures, Fintech, financial advisors
Life comes at you fast in your late twenties to early forties.
You might be climbing the career ladder. Taking the leap into entrepreneurship. Navigating new pay structures. paying for a wedding. Building a family. Buying a home.
When someone is just starting out, it is easy to "DIY" finances by following advice cobbled together from friends and from random personal finance articles. But when someone starts making decisions that impact their family and their businesses, DIY-ing just doesn't cut it.
"Things become a lot more complicated, where you can't just turn to YouTube, TikTok, Instagram...or WallStreetBets," Banker-turned-entrepreneur Jack Boudreau told Hypepotamus.
The natural next step would be to get a financial advisor or a private banker. But there is one big problem: Accessibility. While there are hundreds of thousands of US financial advisors, it's often difficult for early-to-mid-career professionals to connect with them.
Boudreau understood that problem well. Even as he grew his career in finance, he struggled to find a financial advisor that could answer his specific questions. Like many other twenty and thirty-somethings, he was in "wealth accumulation" mode and wanted a more personalized experience than a robo advisor. But without a ton of current liquid assets, he found it challenging to get in front of the more established advisors.
Traditionally, financial services have been "marketed and built for older generations," he said. But Boudreau realized through his research that there are many financial advisors who want to work with up-and-coming professionals, but they are also struggling to find them. Given the demand for tailored financial guidance and a supply of advisors looking to grow their client base, Boudreau recognized the opportunity and need for a new type of marketplace.
That's exactly what Boudreau and his COO/CTO Veera Budhi started building with Habits. It started by manually connecting friends and family to financial advisors. Soon, Boudreau and Budhi were working on a simple MVP made up of Google Sheets and a HubSpot contact form on nights and weekends.
Now, the platform is venture backed and ready to help more young professionals with financial advisors who understand their unique needs.
Boudreau calls Habits the "front door" to finding the right financial advisor. Users link their accounts, outline their goals through a short survey, and are matched with advisors tailored to their needs. Within two minutes, they can schedule introductory calls and start building their financial plan.
Intros are made at no cost. Advisors pay a flat fee to be on the platform.
To date, firms have been reaching out directly to join Habits. The platform currently has over 50 financial advisory firms on the platform and "hundreds of others on their waitlist," according to a press release.
And individuals have also quickly found value in the platform. Even in its early stages as a startup, Habits has helped over 1,000 users overcome traditional barriers, like high asset minimums, that keep people from getting the financial advice they need.
Boudreau said that the type of advisor that works best with Habits' clients are those that work with less than 125 households, have the credentials, and are excited to work with clients who are starting to make big financial moves.
The team bootstrapped to over six figures in ARR (annual recurring revenue) before landing its first angel check from the former vice chairman of JP Morgan.
To really kickstart the fundraising process, Habits initially put together a roll-up vehicle in which they raised $200k from actual users of the platform.
"We had people come to us saying, I had such a great experience on your platform...even on [the MVP]...that we want skin in the game," Bourdreau added. Then an early Habits user connected Boudreau and Budhi to Atlanta Ventures, the VC fund with partners David Cummings, A.T. Gimbel, Jon Birdsong, Kathryn O'Day, and David Lightburn.
This week, the team announced it had raised a $1.1 million oversubscribed pre-seed round. Led by Atlanta Ventures.
"We were really impressed by Jack and Veera's drive and vision for making it easier for the next generation to find and connect with financial advisors. We're excited to partner with Habits as they leverage technology to foster stronger human relationships in the personal finance space," A.T. Gimbel, Partner at Atlanta Ventures, said in a press statement.
Other notable investors behind Habits include Elevate Ventures, Flywheel Fund, former operators at AMEX Ventures, Techstars, J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., Charles Schwab, Pandora, Goldman Sachs, Mastercard, Visa, and Fidelity.
With VC funding behind them, Habits is looking to triple the size of its team and build new features and products to help their core customers. The team is also hyperfocused on spending 2025 "reaching more families, reaching more advisors, and making our marketplace a more consistent experience," Boudreau added.