Envestnet built the back office for financial advisers who quit the big brokerages. Its platform let an adviser open accounts, build portfolios from many outside managers, rebalance them and report to clients, all in one place. Those were the tools the big firms had always provided. As more advisers went independent, they needed someone else to supply them. Envestnet filed to go public in the summer of 2010, as markets recovered from the crisis.

Fees Over Commissions

Judson Bergman started Envestnet in 1999 with a bet on the independent adviser. He saw wealth management moving away from commissions and toward fee-based accounts. Advisers would pay for technology that made those accounts run. Envestnet charged a small fee on the assets on its platform, so it grew as markets and its adviser base grew. Its open design let advisers pick from many outside money managers, which set it apart from captive brokerage platforms.

Yodlee and the Data Trove

Envestnet priced its IPO at $9 a share in July 2010 and listed on the New York Stock Exchange. It grew through acquisitions. One was the data business Yodlee, in 2015, which brought a large store of financial account data that Envestnet sold to banks and fintech companies. Assets on its platform rose into the trillions of dollars. In 2024 Bain Capital took Envestnet private in a deal valued at about $4.5 billion.

Cover: Harvest, Montclair, New Jersey, George Inness. Art Institute of Chicago, public domain. Chosen for a harvest field (wealth grown over time).