NewRetirement, a digital-first financial planning platform, has changed its name to Boldin.
“We've changed our name to reflect our hope for our customers: That you can be financially secure enough to be bold in life, whatever that means for you,” the company's updated website says.
of company and sitewhich launched in 2015 as NewRetirement, today serves both consumers (its original audience) and enterprise partners. This week, it announced a new company name and some new product capabilities.
Topping the list of new features, Boldin has introduced a financial wellness chart. This includes the Boldin Financial Wellness snapshot, which is an assessment of users' financial health measured across more than 20 metrics.
The tool analyzes each metric and evaluates the user, giving him a status marked with a color; those that 'glow' are green, yellow 'progressive' or red 'vulnerable'. The idea is to provide the user with a holistic view of their financial well-being.
In the short-term roadmap, the company plans to introduce a Financial Well-Being Score, assigning a numerical value to users' financial well-being based on their chosen metrics. According to the company, this can be compared to a credit score, and like them, wellness scores can change over time as users make progress on their financial goals.
To date, more than 350,000 consumers have accessed the Boldin platform, analyzed their financial well-being or built financial plans, out of 130,000 users who have done so. when WealthManagement.com interviewed founder and CEO Stephen Chen in February 2021.
According to the company, this number has grown to millions when counting partner customers who have accessed the Boldin platform.
The Customer Model
Consumers have three choices when it comes to Boldin direct-to-consumer tools; the first is the free basic Planner service, where a user can build a custom plan, access the site's repository of planning-related answers to questions, and try out what-if planning and retirement scenarios.
Then, for an annual subscription of $120 with a free 14-day trial, users add more than a hundred additional planning data, receive real-time net worth monitoring based on account accumulation, personalized digital coaching suggestions AI-driven, additional scenario comparisons, live Q&A sessions with Boldin staff CFPs and planners, and access to online classes, among other features.
The third choice is Boldin Advisors, where users can partner with a certified Boldin financial planner and access fee-only fiduciary expertise. This service, on average, costs $1,650 per year, but depends on the level of service. With it, the user gets comprehensive collaborative planning, a comprehensive retirement plan review, help with asset allocation and asset location, and review of Roth conversions and withdrawals, among other services.
Significant interest of independent counsel
While Boldin began life serving a direct-to-consumer market, the firm has received significant interest in recent years from advisors looking for a low-cost financial and retirement planning tool they can share with clients to provide information about theirs. data that was comprehensive and intuitive, but also allowed them to collaborate easily.
“For (independent) advisors, our platform acts like Google Docs, allowing them to collaborate with consumers to edit and build their plan and scenarios. Advisors can interact with plans in Explorer Mode where their changes are not saved, and we also have an edit mode where Advisor changes are saved. Advisors can jump on a Zoom and collaborate on a plan at any time,” Chen wrote in an email.
“We have two basic models: Advisors using a co-branded version and having consumers build plans on Boldin.com. For this model, we receive the subscription fee from the user and the advisor receives the revenue from the services. There is a nominal platform fee of $150 per month per advisor,” he wrote.
And then there are advisors who license the Boldin platform.
“In this case, the price depends on the level of customization and the number of users,” he wrote, and can vary significantly in terms of cost.
“We have 10-15 RIA firms using the licensed platform and we are working with several larger, tech-forward RIAs that plan to pilot the platform,” Chen wrote.
To help build the platform and expand its offering in the consulting world and for partners, Boldin raised $20 million in funding in March. it Series A had participation from a variety of investors and was led by Allegis Capital and joined by Ulu Ventures, Nationwide Ventures, Fin Capital, Frontier Venture Capital, Cameron Ventures, Marin Sonoma Impact Ventures, Northwestern Mutual Future Ventures, Plug and Play Ventures and Motley Fool Ventures, bringing the company's total funding 20.8 million dollars.
Startup Funding Blog TechCrunch reported in March that the company would use the capital to expand its enterprise products, increase onboarding, accelerate R&D efforts, build capacity to meet future demands and deliver Boldin three to four track years.