Envestnet CEO claims to be 'net winner' of consolidating advisor market

Envestnet, the wealthtech company with $7 trillion in platform assets from broker-dealers, RIAs, and other clients, says it is in a strong position to capitalize on the consolidating financial advisor industry amid record highs in M&A activity. 

“Given the market presence we have, we're a net winner in a consolidating industry. More often than not, when two firms come together they're both Envestnet firms or we are going to end up with the lion's share of the assets,” Envestnet CEO Chris Todd said. “It's what we've seen over time. We're going to work hard to make sure that trend continues, so that we continue to be the net winner in a consolidating space.”

Todd spoke Sept. 4 at a media event hosted by Envestnet in New York City. The firm announced plans to invest $1 billion over the next five years in research and development for its wealth management software. Envestnet serves over 111,000 advisors, representing a third of all financial advisors in the US.

“We are growing our product and technology investment by 25%,” said Todd, who joined Envestnet in January after being CEO of HR software firm UKG. “We think there's a moment in time where if we accelerate our throughput on the product side, we can capture more of the market than we've kept at the standard pace.”

Bain Capital finalized its deal in Q4 of last year to take Envestnet private, delisting off the New York Stock Exchange. The transaction valued Envestnet around $4.5 billion, including minority investments from Reverence Capital, Norwest, BlackRock, Fidelity Investments, Franklin Templeton, and State Street Global Advisors.

The same industry of private equity is fueling consolidation in the RIA space, which hit a record 132 transactions totaling $182.7 billion in assets in the first half of 2025, according to Fidelity. In addition to Bain Capital’s majority ownership of Envestnet, the private equity giant has been an investor in the mega-RIA Carson Group since 2021.

“Newly private, [we] don't have to talk to the public investment community, don't have to explain everything that we're doing, don't have to ask for anyone's permission,” said Todd. “We're going to be able to double the size of our firm over the next couple of years by executing in this space.” Currently, advisors using Envestnet represent over 21 million client accounts.

Envestnet’s biggest move under Bain’s ownership has been its July sale of financial data platform Yodlee to private equity firm STG. A class-action lawsuit was launched against Yodlee in 2020, alleging Envestnet and Yodlee failed to adequately protect user data. 

Envestnet says its $1 billion R&D investment roadmap by 2030 focuses on implementing enhanced tools for advisors to offer alternative investments to high-net-worth clients, as well as automating advisor workflows for investment management and client engagement. AI could further influence portfolio construction for advisors using Envestnet.

“We think of artificial intelligence in a couple ways. We think there are opportunities to bring the sheer horsepower of these technologies to the investment world — think differently about how to construct portfolios, how quickly do you adjust those portfolios, and other ways to drive better returns by using this technology over time,” Todd said. 

Envestnet is one of the top TAMPs with built-in impact investing platforms for US advisors and RIAs. Learn more in this guide.