citybiz+ RISR Closes on $1.5M to Advance Financial Advisor Platform to Target Business Owners

Philadelphia-based RISR, which has built a platform to help financial advisors counsel owners of private businesses, has raised $1.5 million from financial services industry executives.

Investors in the pre-seed round include Kane Brenan, Angelo Grecco, Kevin Lucey, Scott Hildenbrand, Frank Coates and David Henkin. The funding is to be used primarily for strategic hires, service enhancements and platform development.

Large Addressable Market

“We believe deeply in the work that advisors do, which often blends tactics with the art of understanding a business owner’s hopes, dreams and desires,” said RISR CEO Jason Early, who founded the company earlier this year, after holding senior positions at business equity valuation firm BizEquity.

RISR addresses a large market. Nearly two-thirds of small business owners — those with one to 50 employees and less than $10 million in annual revenue — don’t have a financial advisor. All private businesses in the country have an aggregate valuation of nearly $8 trillion, and business owners pass on $465 million in wealth to their successors every day, the company points out on its website.

Early and his team are equipping advisors with unmatched technology to provide “desperately needed” financial advice to owners of small businesses, said Lucey, an investor and member of RISR’s advisory board. Lucey previously served as managing director and chief operating officer at Hamilton Lane.

“RISR has assembled an exceptional team to address a pressing need,” said Lucey, adding that he was confident of the company’s ability to drive meaningful change.

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QuickBooks Integration
RISR has built a platform that fully integrates with QuickBooks, which are commonly used by business owners, and plans more sophisticated, AI-equipped tools later. Access to QuickBooks helps extract data from the tax returns of the businesses, enabling financial advisors to offer suitable counsel. RISR’s platform supports succession and exit planning, estate and legacy planning, retirement planning, insurance, tax planning, and capital and liquidity planning.

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According to WealthManagement.com, RISR charges $350 per month for an individual advisor’s subscription, and about $1,000 a month for firms with several advisors. Pricing for enterprise licenses is reportedly more complex.

Several financial advisors and firms have been using RISR’s platform, with many expressing satisfaction with its basic tools. They include Bill Medico’s Jacobi Wealth Advisors and Jacobi Capital Management.