Arca, an RIA focused on using AI to assist its financial advisors, has raised $64 million in funding and launches out of stealth mode managing more than $1 billion in client assets.
Investors in Arca include General Catalyst, Index Ventures and Venrock. Arca founder and CEO Rron Rexha is a former product team lead at fintech firm Plaid. According to a testimonial on Arca’s website, the RIA works with a client described as a ‘leader at Anthropic,’ the Claude maker expected to pursue a mega-IPO later this year that could value the AI giant near $1 trillion.
“Arca has been a delightful and low-pressure partner: always responsive, creative, and genuinely client-oriented. They've delivered real results and helped us navigate life's financial transitions with ease, which is why we're excited to keep growing this partnership,” reads an endorsement on Arca’s website attributed to a leader from Anthropic.
The 28-employee team at Arca includes nine advisors, chief compliance officer Andrew Salcetti, and other members across client services, operations, and engineering. Arca uses AI to automate tasks such as onboarding clients and opening accounts with the intent to give advisors more time to focus on interactions with clients.
“Every Arca client gets a human advisor, they do not interact with AI directly because the service we're providing is heavily based on trust and having that human is incredibly important,” Rexha told InvestmentNews. “We do think ultimately having the human generates better outcomes. Whether clients want to meet us in person in our offices, get on a call, a video call, talk through email — we're available in every channel.”
Arca has offices in New York City, Maryland, and New Hampshire. In May 2026, Arca acquired Sandbox Financial Partners, a Bethesda, Md.-based RIA with about $682 million in AUM. Granite Bay Wealth Management, a Portsmouth, N.H.-based firm founded in 2015, has also been folded under Arca. Clients are required to have $500,000 in investable assets with Arca, but the RIA’s Form ADV says this minimum could be waived at the discretion of Arca.
“We're scaling nationally, we're a national RIA. We want to be able to service clients in every corner of the U.S., whether that's virtually or through in-person relationships,” said Rexha, who migrated to the U.S. from Kosovo. “That also means that we will be expanding our presence physically as well across the U.S. over the rest of the year and next year.”
Arca’s approach is different from other venture-backed RIA startups such as Range, whose CEO told InvestmentNews that his firm plans to eliminate its advisor workforce in the coming years to be replaced with AI. Advisory board members to Arca include Altruist CEO Jason Wenk, former Vanguard CEO Bill McNabb, former Charles Schwab CFO Peter Crawford, and Morgan Housel, author of "The Psychology of Money."
“This business is incredibly personal, money is quite emotional. People look for an advisor because it's not just about the numbers, it's also about helping make decisions and being confident in the decisions they make, and even understanding what's the point of this money that I've made,” said Rexha. “How do I actually leverage it for the purpose that ultimately matters? And so we're trying to enable the time that advisors can truly focus on that.”
According to Arca’s Form ADV, clients are charged an annual asset management fee between 0.50% to 1.50% of their assets held with Arca. The RIA’s custodian partners include Schwab, Fidelity, and Altruist. “Given Altruist’s modern custody platform, our platform is able to integrate significantly better and be able to automate and create some efficiencies that are much greater for our advisors,” said Rexha.
“Rron and his team at Arca have re-invented what a wealth management firm should look like in the AI era,” Wenk wrote on LinkedIn. “No legacy tech or relics. Every workflow built from scratch, with first principles thinking. AI agents replacing human and traditional software inefficiencies so advisors can do incredible work without compromise.”
Wenk added that he’s “met over 10,000 financial advisors the past 20+ years. Never have I met anyone like Rron Rexha,” wrote the Altruist CEO. “The [Arca] team is unlike any RIA ever assembled. A founder with a Masters in Engineering from Penn who helped build Plaid. World class machine learning and applied AI engineers.”
“It's harder for someone close to retirement to justify leaving, because all the [wirehouse] firms have retirement deals,” said Louis Diamond, CEO of Diamond Consultants.
While there's yet to be any AI premium or discount for selling firms in RIA deals, M&A veteran Rush Benton says it's already factoring into how advisors choose their next home.
Advisors can use fractional share trading to implement client models to the dollar, rather than rounding to whole shares.
Median RIA assets rose 14.5% while client rosters grew barely 2%, according to a new analysis of SEC filing data.
Schwab data shows hiring remains top priority for RIAs, while employee value propositions and AI are reshaping recruiting.
Northern Trust’s Ken Lassner shows advisors how to convert volatility into after-tax portfolio gains
Dan Biagini of American Equity says the steady decline of pensions, longer lifespans and a reset in interest rates are rewriting how advisors build retirement income
