Smartfolios: A new Online Advisory and Investment Platform from Singapore

Smartfolios is a Singapore-based online advisory and investment platform targeted at financial institutions that promises to deliver cheaper, more transparent and more convenient solutions to incumbents. Smartfolios has a simple mission: empower investors to reach their investment goals.

Smartfolios’ value proposition is two-fold: on one hand, the company offers a large range of strategies including asset allocation, thematic, fundamentals and factor-based models. These strategies are delivered as pre-built portfolios of listed securities cutting across asset classes.

Portfolios are fully customizable and rebalanced regularly. This allows to incorporate the best of active and passive investing. “Ultimately, the aim is to deliver an enhanced risk-return to our partners’ clients,” founders Julien Le Noble and Quentin Issele told Fintechnews.

Quentin Issele

Julien Le Noble

On the other hand, Smartfolios has developed a modular and flexible platform deployed as a B2B white label solution. The solution consists of several core modules ranging from client on-boarding, front to back capabilities, and rebalancing and risk management functionalities to manage and track investments.

Le Noble and Issele, who previously worked for financial institutions and global exchanges, founded Smartfolios in 2016 after noticing that incumbents were lacking a simple, affordable and transparent digital wealth management solution that meets the investment needs of their clients.

“With the types of technologies available today this should not be the case,” the founders said. “After consulting with several financial institutions, we realized they needed to engage clients digitally and offer them a meaningful and personalized investment experience. With that validation, we decided to develop Smartfolios as a solution that combining the best of passive and active investing.”

Smartfolios is Startupbootcamp Singapore Member and announced First Partnership

In March, Smartfolios joined the notorious Startupbootcamp Fintech Singapore acceleration program alongside 11 other fintech startups.

Image credit: Smartfolios at Startupbootcamp Fintech Singapore, via Twitter

“We joined the Startupbootcamp Fintech program because we saw an opportunity to truly accelerate our go to market and direct sales strategy,” Le Noble and Issele explained.

The 12 startups are currently receiving mentorship form more than 400 entrepreneurs, investors and corporate partners. They will have the opportunity to test-trial their solutions, access industry data, pilot customers, connectivity and additional capital through partnerships with financial corporations such as MasterCard, CIMB, RHB, DBS Bank, PwC and Jungle Ventures, among many others. Government-backed innovation bodies such as Accreditation@IDA, ThinkZone and SGInnovate will also be supporting these startups.

“Access to domain experts, access to a broad and deep network in the financial industry, support throughout the three months of the program will certainly be invaluable given our goals to sign initial customers at the current stage of development of our startup,” the founders said.

“We plan to cover brand new domain such incorporating AI, advanced News Analytics in portfolio construction, Natural Language Processing in advisory as well as advanced RegTech in the onboarding process. We also plan to advance beyond equities and add the ability to include FX to offer currency hedging solutions,” the founders said.

“Ultimately, we aim to become a global fintech company operating at the nexus of financial and technological innovations.”

Featured image via SmartFolios.