NEW YORK–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Bento Engine Inc., a FinTech empowering financial advisors to deliver proactive, comprehensive advice at scale to better serve clients, deepen relationships and convert more prospects, today announced a substantial investment from veteran wealth management leaders and senior executives following a year of accelerated growth and adoption by financial advisory firms. Bento’s technology and content solution integrates with leading CRMs such as Salesforce, Dynamics, Practifi, XLR8, Redtail and Wealthbox to identify upcoming highly impactful advice opportunities for clients through advisors’ existing systems.
Using proven APIs, Bento’s technology and content solution scans large data sets to identify ways for advisors to offer proactive advice, then delivers a package of timely, highly relevant, proprietary, compliance pre-approved, client-facing content and communication resources as an actionable CRM task.
Today’s seed funding announcement follows an impressive first year of growth for Bento, which launched its successful pilot program in 2021 with six client-centric advisory firms ranging in size from $100mm to $17B+ in AUM. Bento has also developed partnerships with pioneering tech platforms RIA Oasis and Conneqtor, which provide support for growth-oriented advisors through education and technology consulting.
Seed-round investors include:
- Marty Bicknell, CEO & President, Mariner Wealth Advisors
- Shannon Eusey, CEO and Co-Founder, Beacon Pointe Advisors
- Greg Friedman, Chief Strategy Officer, Wealthspire Advisors
- Doug Fritz, President & Founder, F2 Strategy
- Jen Goldman, President, Jen Goldman Consulting
- Anton Honikman, CEO, MyVest
- Andy Putterman, Founder & CEO, 1812 Park, LLC
- Gavin Spitzner, President, Wealth Consulting Partners
- Kelly Waltrich, CEO and Co-Founder, Intention.ly
“We have been very impressed with the Bento team’s experience and deep domain expertise, the product they have developed and the progress they have made in the market,” said investor and Advisory Council member Shannon Eusey. “Markets like the one we’re experiencing in recent weeks should send a clear signal to advisors that they need to be valued for far more than their investment management prowess. Bento offers advisors the keys to unlock their full potential for adding value to the client-relationship, for generations to come.”
“As the industry continues to focus on ways to improve client outcomes through better and more consistent advice and on accelerating organic growth, which is imperative for financial advisors, we believe Bento will become an essential part of every tech stack,” added investor Greg Friedman.
Once an opportunity to offer important counsel is identified, Bento creates an alert and a package of relevant proprietary, compliance pre-approved client content and communication tools and pushes those back to the advisor as a CRM task. The initial advice program is called “Life in Numbers,” which scans for 15 age points that must not be over-looked (e.g. Age 50: Catch-Up Contributions) and delivers alerts and content related to those specific age points that the advisor can white-label and use immediately. Bento uses proprietary technology called the Timing Engine which ensures alerts and content are delivered with the appropriate lead-time ahead of the age-point to optimize client planning and decision-making opportunities.
“We are thrilled and privileged to work with such a prominent group of investors to continue helping wealth management firms identify and deliver proactive advice to their clients,” said Philipp Hecker, CEO of Bento Engine. “Everybody wins when advisors serve their clients comprehensively.”
“Validation of what we’ve built from such an esteemed group of financial professionals inspires us to make an even greater impact, by way of delivering crucial financial advice to individuals and families at key points in their lives, via their most trusted advisors,” added Greg Quental, President of Bento Engine.
Bento intends to use their seed funding to continue developing a proprietary program to support the delivery of critical financial advice to clients during monumental life events, as well as to further expand its business development efforts to reach a broader group of wealth management firms and their advisors.
To learn more about Bento Engine, visit bentoengine.com
Bento combines powerful advice technology, proprietary content and timing expertise to empower Financial Advisors to better serve their clients and grow their business. Founded by industry leaders with decades of industry experience in 2021, Bento’s mission is to bring advice beyond investing to more families across the wealth spectrum via caring financial advisors, so that families thrive and advisors’ practices grow. Partnering with leading advisor Customer Relationship Management (CRM) tools, including Salesforce, Redtail, Wealthbox, Microsoft Dynamics CRM, XLR8, and Practifi, Bento facilitates well-documented client outreach and allows advisors to serve all accounts with personalized advice. To learn more about Bento Engine, visit bentoengine.com, and follow Bento on LinkedIn and Twitter.
