Fintech acquires financial services licensee and closed AUD$12m late seed round to accelerate its hybrid wealth-tech platform

Perth – 25th June 2020 – Picture Wealth Holdings Ltd (“PictureWealth”), a fast-growing wealth FinTech, closes its AUD$12m late-seed funding round, comprising of private equity and debt, and has recently acquired financial services licensee, NEO Financial Solutions (“NFS”) for an undisclosed sum.

NFS became a wholly owned subsidiary of PictureWealth and NFS MD Mark Edman will also take on the Group COO role. The aligned vision is to take the company forward with a sound and tried growth strategy enabling the business to grow rapidly in a compliant and well governed manner, whilst augmenting the client experience with market leading technology.

Within its first 2 years of commercial operation PictureWealth has grown rapidly to revenues of AUD$20m, AUD$2bn of Funds Under Advice and over 40,000 clients. PictureWealth, a profitable FinTech company, now has its sights firmly set on reinventing the financial advisory and superannuation landscape in Australia.

PictureWealth was founded by CEO David Pettit, a long-term private wealth innovator and Chairman Neal Cross, a globally recognised fintech and social entrepreneur.

Mr Neal Cross, Co-Founder and Chairman of PictureWealth commented, “We are super excited about completing this transaction and welcoming the NFS clients and staff into the PictureWealth family. Mark is a world-class talent and is joining our journey to digitally transform the entire industry, one financial planning business at a time. We have built an engine of innovation that enables us to rapidly onboard new financial advisors, optimise how they run their business and give customers a best in class digital platform while at the same time helping them to reduce their product related fees.”

Mr David Pettit, Co-Founder and Group CEO of PictureWealth stated, “For me, it’s always about the people. We found that the leadership team at NFS shared our outlook on the future of financial advice and we wanted to align to take the companies forward together. That’s why we felt acquiring NFS with its robust compliance protocols was the way forward so that we could offer advisers and their clients a new home amidst very turbulent market conditions. Many financial advisers have spent their entire lives building a business that is now worth less than expected, or in some cases nothing at all. This is due to a number of reasons, but primarily the new education requirements from FASEA means they have to have a degree level qualification and many older advisors are just not willing or unable to spend another 4 years studying to get the new qualification.”

Mr Mark Edman, Managing Director of NFS, and now Chief Operating Officer of PictureWealth commented, “This acquisition allows a unified and streamlined approach to provide consumers an accessible personalised service. The use of the Fintech will assist in lifting the financial barrier many consumers may experience as the industry evolves. A great combination of real people with technology. At the same time, we will be releasing a range of value-added services to make the lives of financial advisers easier so they can spend more time helping their clients achieve financial happiness”