WealthTech Weekly For 06/30/2020

Snappy Kraken
Snappy Kraken, a MarTech company focused on helping financial professionals automate their marketing and business growth, announced they have been selected as finalists for the WealthManagement.com 2020 Industry Awards, in three Technology Provider categories. This is the only awards program of its kind to honor outstanding achievements by companies and organizations that support financial advisor success.

Smartleaf
Smartleaf, an overlay management platform, and MIGMIR LLC, dba Melius Investments, an RIA built upon the power and promise of Ensemble Active Management, is pleased to announce that Melius’s EAM Portfolios are being added to Smartleaf’s model hub.

Sezzle
Minneapolis-based financial-technology startup Sezzle announced that it had changed its company charter to become a Public Benefit Corporation. PBC is a legal designation that requires businesses to do right by all stakeholders. This means that a company’s managers and board must lead the business in a way that contributes to a general public benefit, in addition to seeking a financial return for investors.

Cary Street Partners
Cary Street Partners, the wealth management arm of Cary Street Partners Financial based in Richmond, Va., has acquired Waypoint Advisors, a Virginia Beach, Va.-based registered investment advisor with about $215 million in client assets. The transaction, expected to close at the end of this month, will create a combined firm with $4 billion in client assets.

Ellevest
Ellevest, a company whose focus has been on closing the gender investing gap by way of a financial planning service aimed at women, is expanding into banking. The company announced a new membership plan which encompasses one-on-one financial and career coaching, member-only workshops and guides, personalized investing plans, plus a no-fee debit card and banking service.

Vasyl Soloshchuk is CEO and co-owner at INSART, a FinTech engineering company. Soloshchuck is also the author of WealthTech Club, which conducts research into fortune and startup roboadvisor and wealth management companies in terms of the technology ecosystem.