Fintech bytes: Pontera and Opto Investments expand RIA reach with new tech partnerships

Pontera, the fintech firm with a focus on helping advisors manage and oversee held-away retirement assets, has forged a new partnership with hybrid RIA Snowden Lane, while Opto Investments helps an Indiana-based independent upgrade its capability to offer private market investments.

Pontera, a platform that enables advisors to manage held-away retirement accounts, has partnered with Snowden Lane Partners to give the RIA’s advisors access to tools for overseeing clients' 401(k)s, 403(b)s, and similar employer-sponsored plans.

The integration includes functionality for rebalancing, compliance tracking, and billing, allowing Pontera to embed more deeply into the workflows of RIAs seeking to offer holistic advice.

The partnership continues Pontera’s effort to bring professional oversight to assets that have historically sat outside advisors' reach.

"Like Snowden Lane, Pontera is committed to empowering retirement savers with choice over how their retirement assets are managed," said Peter Nolan, senior vice president of sales at Pontera. "Those with a broader financial plan need their 401(k) accounts managed holistically with the rest of their assets."

The New York-based fintech has steadily expanded its footprint among RIAs aiming to close the gap between employer-sponsored retirement savings and overall wealth strategies. Its platform allows advisory firms to deliver management and fee-based services on assets previously considered unmanageable due to plan restrictions or third-party custodianship.

The most recent T3/Inside Information Software Survey for 2025 ranked Pontera among the top 5 account aggregation tools by market share, though the category was deeply slanted toward the top three players – eMoney, Morningstar ByAllAccounts, and RightCapital – which together held roughly 45% of market share.

Recent research by Cerulli identified 401(k) plans as a crucial beachhead for advice, noting that two-thirds of active 401(k) participants do not currently work with an advisor. Looking at plan participants with $250,000 to $2 million in investable assets, 31% of those without an advisor said they plan to hire one as they get closer to retirement.

"Our firm's advisors have long seen significant demand from clients for advice in held-away workplace retirement accounts," noted Alison Burkett, executive vice president and head of enterprise development at Snowden Lane Partners.

Meanwhile, Opto Investments announced a new relationship with Fi3 Advisors, a $1 billion RIA and multi-family office, to enhance the firm’s private markets operations. Opto provides technology designed to streamline private investments, helping advisors scale offerings that traditionally required significant manual work.

The deal includes tools for automating sub-document creation, enabling digital signatures, consolidating performance reporting, and integrating with portfolio systems like Addepar. Opto also provides advanced portfolio construction features and pacing solutions that aim to align private and public investments and improve tax efficiency.

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"A core part of our investment philosophy is meaningful integration of private markets, and Opto is helping us scale that thesis," said Nathan Kinney, director of investments at Fi3 Advisors. "Opto’s platform gives us cleaner data and smoother operations."

Opto, which positions itself as an all-in-one private markets solution for RIAs, family offices, and independent firms, has focused on reducing friction in the alternatives space while helping advisors deliver institutional-grade investment experiences to high-net-worth clients.

A report by F2 Investments earlier this year found 88% of wealth management firms incorporate alternative investments into client portfolios, but just half used a third-party to manage alternative offerings, with the rest relying on manual processes.

“We would expect to see the use of technology grow at the same rate or even faster than the increase in firms using alts,” said Doug Fritz, F2 co-founder and executive chair. 

F2 found 83% of firms using third-party platforms for alts reported operational and efficiency gains, while three-quarters saw improvements in data accuracy. Other benefits included enhanced data visibility and timeliness, as well as better integration with their existing systems.