RIA Fi3 Advisors entered into a partnership with wealthtech firm Opto Investments to enhance Fi3’s ability to provide its high net worth (HNW) clients with private market investment options, the firms said Wednesday.
Opto will enhance Fi3’s existing private markets program by “simplifying private investment workflows, centralizing performance data for end-client reporting, and helping establish an annual vintage funds program customized to the needs” of the RIA’s clients, the firms said in a news release.
Fi3 manages about $1 billion in assets for about 130 families, serving as a single point of contact for all areas of their financial affairs, according to the fee-only RIA.
The new partnership with Opto will further modernize and “institutionalize” Fi3’s private markets offerings, which usually represent 15-25% of the RIA’s client portfolios, according to the firms.
“Our goal at Fi3 is to ‘Empower Families to Create a Generational Impact,’” said Nathan Kinney, Director of Investments at Fi3.
“We do that by delivering a family-office experience to families who typically don’t have access to that level of support,” he explained. “A core part of our investment philosophy is meaningful integration of private markets, and Opto is helping us scale that thesis.”
He added, “Private markets investing has historically been resource-intensive for us, but Opto’s platform gives us cleaner data and smoother operations, allowing us to focus on what actually matters: helping our clients achieve better outcomes.”
By leveraging Opto’s solutions, Fi3 advisors and clients will benefit from what the companies said will be a “streamlined operational experience with a single K-1, automated subdoc creation, digital signatures and smooth integration with its reporting software, Addepar.”
Opto’s portfolio construction tools will enhance Fi3’s ability to align private and public markets investments to optimize after-tax returns, while its pacing solution “enables Fi3 to more thoughtfully build private markets allocations over time that complement public market exposures,” the companies said.
“At Opto, we partner with firms at every stage of their private markets journey, from those just starting out to those with established programs seeking to grow using the right technology,” according to Jake Miller, Co-Founder and Chief Solutions Officer at Opto.
“We look forward to supporting Fi3’s growth by streamlining operations and helping them efficiently expand their clients’ access to private markets vehicles.”
Since 2013 when it was founded, Fi3 says its assets have grown organically about 36% year-over-year.
In October, Opto and EP Wealth Advisors said they entered into a strategic partnership to enhance EP Wealth’s ability to provide its HNW clients with private market investment options.
In June 2024, Mercer Advisors and Opto said they partnered to expand Mercer’s private markets offering for clients.
Jeff Berman, Contributing Editor and Reporter at Wealth Solutions Report, can be reached at jeff.berman@wealthsolutionsreport.com.
