A little over four years ago, after working in finance for over a decade, I couldn’t explain to my four-year-old daughter how my job helped people. I had seen behind Wall Street’s veil and I couldn’t unsee all of the conflicts of interests. I had the knowledge to take a stab at empowering American consumers to make the best possible financial decisions – starting with whom they hire as a financial advisor. So I took the leap and left my cushy job to start Zoe Financial. 

Fast forward to today and thousands of clients have hired their fiduciary advisor through Zoe. Over the last twelve months, tens of thousands of prospective clients with an aggregate of over $12 billion in investable assets have matched with Zoe Network Advisors. The aggregate assets under management of Zoe’s network grew 1,477% to $410 billion during that same period. These milestones prove we are onto something big, but for each person who has hired a fiduciary advisor through Zoe, there are a million families being peddled expensive financial products by salespeople dressed up as advisors. It is time to accelerate Zoe’s trajectory in order to help millions of families, sooner.

Caption: Zoe’s Founder & CEO Andres Garcia-Amaya (left) and Marcelo Claure, CEO Softbank Group Corporation (right.)

I’m thrilled to Announce that Zoe Raised $10M in Series A Funding 

We were fortunate to have multiple institutional investors to choose from to lead the round. Ultimately, we partnered with Softbank’s Opportunity Fund. No doubt, having the largest Venture Capital investor in the world in our corner was part of the appeal. Softbank’s experience helping scale the world’s most successful marketplaces like Doordash, Uber, and Rappi is unparalleled. Ultimately, what sealed the deal was the people. Getting to know Marcelo Claure, Shu Nyatta, Paul Judge, and Chad Harris through the due diligence process made it an easy decision to partner with them. They did the homework to understand the business, and put in the time to get to know our team. 

In addition to Softbank, we are excited to add some of the world’s best investors and operators that have founded or scaled some of the most successful marketplaces in the world. New investors joining this round include Aaron Schildkrout (Investor at Addition & Former Global Head of Growth @ Uber) Jessica Lachs (VP of Data Science @ Doordash) Chris Nakutis (Former COO @ Bird), Jay Desai ( Founder/CEO @ PatientPing), Cherif Habib (Founder/CEO @ Dialogue), Republic Labs and more. 

We’re also thrilled to welcome back existing investors in the round including Chris Jones(Former Blackrock Global Equity CIO), Marie Chandoha (former CEO of Schwab Asset Management), ThirdStream Partners, Robert Deutsch (Chairman of JP Morgan ETF Board,) Thomas Luddy (Former Vice Chairman of JP Morgan Global Investment Management) and Stephanie Dimarco (Former Founder/CEO of Advent Software.)

What’s Next for Zoe?

Raising money in itself isn’t a marker of success – it’s what we do with the money that counts. Zoe already delivers a delightful end-to-end digital experience, but our vision will not stop at providing a great digital journey for consumers and advisors. Zoe will become the destination. Wall Street was built on a foundation of industrial-like scalable financial products. Technological and operational innovation in the last decade has now commoditized access to financial products. As a result, consumers now demand more. They want personalized advice that incorporates every aspect of their financial lives. Zoe is building a digital ‘financial home’ for the consumer that sees the world the way they do. Where a client can communicate and collaborate with their financial experts and keep track of their financial progress all in one place.

Building Zoe into a platform that can empower millions of clients with their finances is an exciting challenge, and we believe Softbank is the ideal partner to help us achieve this vision.

I’m incredibly proud of the team we’ve built so far. Similar to our advisor network, we are extremely selective of who gets a seat in this rocket ship. Our secret sauce is finding people that are intrinsically motivated and have the hunger to build a world-class product. We will be spending a lot of time hiring the best teammates we can find who are excited about our mission to empower Americans to make better financial decisions. 

Thank You for Supporting Zoe in Our Journey

We are inspired by the response we’ve received to date. We are working tirelessly toward our goal, but cannot do it alone. If you are an independent financial advisor looking to help new clients, apply to join the Zoe network here. If this post speaks to you, join our team!