Between launching new products and onboarding financial advisors to Altruist, CEO Jason Wenk says 2026 has been a breakout year for the RIA custodian startup founded in 2018.
“We had our best ever quarter in Q1 and then surpassed that with the first two months of Q2, so we're something like 140% of expected trajectory in terms of virtually all of the top line metrics — things like assets and revenue, and so forth,” Wenk told InvestmentNews. “This has been sort of a banner breakout year, we're quite a bit ahead of plans.”
Texas-based RIA Holistic Planning was announced this week as Altruist’s newest custodian user. The advisory firm will move $450 million of its $1.25 billion in client assets under management to Altruist, while also remaining partnered with Schwab, Pershing, and Raymond James for custody.
“Their [Holistic Planning’s] business model is unique in that they recruit advisors primarily from Edward Jones,” said Wenk. “So, a lot of the why isn't more [assets] coming over is because those were advisors who recently transitioned to independence. On a go-forward basis, the new firms that are coming out are 100% on Altruist. I suspect that as time goes by, you'll see that proportion continue to favor Altruist.”
Altruist positions itself as the tech-forward custodian option in a marketplace led by Charles Schwab, which custodies $5.5 trillion in assets for around 16,000 RIAs. Schwab plans to open 30 in-house Schwab Wealth Advisory locations by the end of this year, which prompted some advisors to voice concerns of the custodian competing with RIAs for the same pool of clients.
“If the pilot [for Schwab] worked well, and you expand to 30, then why not eventually expand to 50? Why not eventually hundreds, and why not eventually just take all the clients yourself?” Wenk said of Altruist’s custodian competitor. “What it boils down to is, do you believe you can serve end-clients better yourself or by powering independent advisors? And we took the approach that the absolute best thing for consumers and for the industry is to support independent small businesses.”
The SEC has stated that about 75% of the country’s 21,650 RIAs have less than $1 billion in assets. Wenk views these firms as being core to Altruist’s business appeal.
“People might not like that moniker, but the reality is almost every RIA in the country is technically a small business, they employ less than 100 people,” said Wenk. “We are 110% focused on supporting independent advisors and helping them do the best they can for their clients, and that's not what other folks are choosing.”
Altruist added tax planning to its advisor AI platform Hazel in February, which sparked a downturn in share prices of publicly-traded legacy advisor brands Schwab, LPL, and Raymond James. So far this year, Altruist has also announced new products around direct indexing and private markets for advisors, including access to private equity and real estate investments.
“Altruist’s API connectivity gives us the flexibility to build the operating experience we want—not just for our own advisors and clients, but for the independent advisors we plan to bring onto HolisticOS,” Holistic Planning founder and CEO Jason Barber said in a statement. “Moreover, having the alternatives marketplace directly within the platform was a game-changer. That combination made Altruist the right fit for our long-term vision.
A beta program of Altruist Advisors launched in May as a new model for Altruist to deliver compliance, custody, and operational infrastructure to small independent advisors. A broader launch of the program is planned for the fall, and Wenk says Altruist had “probably five times the number of people try to sign up than we had room for,” in its early beta phase.
“I'd say the typical range was between $100 million and $300 million in client assets, and all of them over 10 years of experience in the industry, some closer to 20 years,” Wenk said of onboarding Altruist Advisors members. “Some are coming from the independent broker dealer channel and others are coming from a W-2 employee channel, so they're true breakaways moving into the RIA channel for the first time. Then some are coming from other RIAs, folks who were maybe the junior advisor of a larger team and they want to form their own firm.”
Wenk previously told InvestmentNews in October 2025 that Altruist is on a “fairly clear path to profitability.” In October, Altruist laid off about 50 employees, representing a 15% staff reduction at the time.
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