Palo Alto Automated Advisor reported a net gain of 123 million dollars about revenues of 339 million in the last year.
Wealthfront, a Fintech company with 17 years of age that offers automated portfolios of shares and bonds and cash accounts with interest to consumers, has been registered with the stock exchange and values commission to go over. With only 330 employees, it has 1.3 million customers and 88 billion dollars in total assets under management. Historically, Wealthfront has attended technological workers and other accommodated millennials: its average client is 38 years old and earns more than $ 100,000 annually.
In the year that ended on July 31, 2025, Wealthfront’s revenues grew 26% to 339 million dollars, according to their regulatory presentation S-1. Its net gain reached 123 million dollars, a decrease compared to the previous year mainly due to a great fiscal benefit deferred in 2024. It was last valued at 2 billion dollars at the end of last year in an internal public offer, when it allowed employees to sell their private shares of Wealthfront.
The Palo Alto company now plans to expand to the mortgage business. According to its website, you will soon offer mortgages with interest rates approximately “0.5% below the national average.” He currently has a license to grant mortgages in five states – California, Colorado, Connecticut, Michigan and Texas – according to a person familiar with the company’s plans.
Co -founded in 2008 by Andy Rachleff (who was previously co -founder of Benchmark risk capital firm), Wealthfront began with a different business name and model. Operating under the name Kaching, it began as a market where investors paid for accessing professional money managers of their choice. The idea failed. Rachleff changed the name to Wealthfront and turned the business in 2011 to offer managed investment portfolios, designed algorithmically to adapt to temporary horizons and investor risk tolerance, with a very low rate. It was a business-now known as automated advice (theft-adview)-that the New York Startup Betterment had started a year and a half before.
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But the true growth of Wealthfront took off when it began offering cash management accounts with interests in 2019, surpassing other large fintechs such as Robinhood in that market. By consistently offering competitive interest rates, it has attracted more funds to its cash accounts than its automated shares and bonds, accumulating 47 billion dollars in total assets in consumer cash accounts, compared to 42 billion in investment accounts. Now, with interest rates going down, Wealthfront looks for new products to grow.
David Fortunato, the third employee of Wealthfront (joined in 2009), was appointed technology director in 2011, president in 2019 and executive director in 2021.
Throughout the business history, you have tried to keep costs to collect small rates and yet obtain profits. His first office was previously occupied by a dry cleaner, and Fortunato personally assembled 40 desks of IKEA (bought at $ 130 each) for the new employees. Rachleff promoted Wealthfront to use software to automate everything. “If we couldn’t automate it, we didn’t offer it,” said Rachleff, now president of the company, for Forbes last year.
It began by charging (and still charged) only 0.25% of the assets for their investment accounts, surpassing both the typical financial advisors, whose rates were averaged 1.3%, and Betterment, which subsequently lowered their prices and now also charges 0.25% of the assets for regular portfolios of shares and bonds.
The company spent only 6 million dollars in marketing throughout 2023, but Fortunato has increased that expense before the OPI. In the three months that ended in July 2025, Wealthfront spent $ 9 million, or approximately 10% of their income, in marketing. This intensified growth approach anticipates a challenge that Wealthfront will face as a public company: expanding quick enough to satisfy Wall Street investors. Since he went into June, the actions of the Digital Chime Bank have fallen, partly due to investors’ concerns about their future growth. Like Chime, Wealthfront also competes with large rivals established with deep pockets – specifically Vanguard, Schwab and Fidelity.
The low -cost approach to Wealthfront finally allowed it to become profitable in 2023, the year after its planned acquisition by UBS for 1.4 billion dollars was canceled. Ear money through its annual commission of 0.25% on assets in automated investments and, for its cash accounts, get a margin, paying customers a rate slightly lower than the one it receives from their partner banks. Other Wealthfront products include investment in individual shares, bond stairs that allow higher interest rates and university savings accounts 529.
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Among the main shareholders of Wealthfront that manage the company are Rachleff, which has 15%, and Fortunato, which has 8%. Other large investors include risk capital firms Tiger Global (20%), Dag Ventures (12%), Index Ventures (11%) and Ribbit Capital (9%).
This article was originally published by Forbes US
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