Japanese robo-advisor WealthNavi banks $37.6m in series D round

Japanese financial robo-advisor WealthNavi bagged about US$37.6 million in a series D funding round led by a limited partnership established by existing investors Sony Financial Ventures and Global Brain.

Opt Ventures, SMBC Venture Capital, DBJ Capital, and Resona Capital, among others, also participated in the round, which brought WealthNavi’s total funding to around US$135.8 million to date.

Photo credit: Japanexperterna.se

The company looks to use the new funds to further develop its platform, expand its management team, and invest in marketing.

Headquartered in Tokyo, WealthNavi offers a platform for asset managers who use risk management algorithms to provide asset management advice. It also has advanced functions such as automatic tax optimization and portfolio rebalancing.

The company claims to have reached about 240,000 applications and have roughly US$1.65 billion in assets under custody since its launch in July 2016.

Prior to its series D round, the company raised US$41.2 million in series C funding in 2018. The Mirai Creation Fund-led round saw participation from SMBC Venture Capital and Infinity Ventures.

According to Statista, assets under management in Japan’s robo-advisory segment amount to US$4.35 billion this year, and that number is expected to increase to US$9.72 billion by 2023. There is also an estimated 255,000 users of robo-advisors in the country – a number that’s expected to jump to 429,000 by 2023.

One of WealthNavi’s competitors in the space is Raku-Wrap, a service offered by local ecommerce and online retailing giant Rakuten. Japan’s Shizuoka Bank also launched its own robo-advisory service for discretionary investment management, partnering with asset management solutions provider Monex-Saison-Vanguard Investment Partners.