Aquiline has agreed to take a controlling stake in Flourish, the New York-based cash management and lending platform that Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company has built into a mainstay of the independent advisor world.
The deal, announced Wednesday, will hand a private investment firm focused on financial services and technology the reins of a wealth tech platform that supports more than 1,300 registered investment advisory firms nationwide.
MassMutual will keep a significant minority stake and remain a commercial partner once the transaction closes in the fourth quarter, pending regulatory approvals.
The arrangement, which marks a shift in ownership rather than an outright sale, comes as competition intensifies among fintech providers racing to give independent RIAs the kind of integrated banking capabilities that wirehouses have long used to keep high-net-worth clients in-house.
Flourish's advisor-led cash-management business has expanded assets under custody from $1 billion to $8 billion over five years, according to the firm. That trajectory tracks with the broader push by RIAs to deepen their relationship with clients, which includes more visibility and potential advisory influence over held-away cash.
Earlier this year, Flourish rolled out what it describes as the first home-lending solution built specifically for the independent advisor channel, extending a platform that already anchors its business in cash management. That update was roughly a year in the making, with the fuse being lit in March last year with its announced acquisition of the Sora platform, which helps advisors optimize clients’ loans across multiple products such as mortgages, HELOCs, student loans, and credit cards.
Flourish has also forged relationships with major RIA aggregators over the past two years, including a tie-up with mega-RIA Mariner last November and an earlier expansion into Focus Financial Partners's network of firms. Beyond that, it has built out integrations with CRM platforms including Salesforce Financial Services Cloud, Practifi and Salentica.
David Canter, who spent years leading Fidelity's RIA and family office segments before departing for a short-lived stint at Bluespring Wealth Partners, will join Flourish's board as executive chairman once the deal closes. Aquiline has a track record of backing wealth and retirement technology companies, with past investments including Ascensus, AssetMark and Sageview.
"Under MassMutual's ownership, Flourish has built a following that includes some of the largest and fastest-growing RIA firms," said Charles Janeway, a principal at Aquiline, in the announcement. "We look forward to putting our network and experience in wealth management to work on Flourish's behalf."
Flourish chief executive Max Lane framed the new ownership structure as a way to move faster while preserving continuity with MassMutual. "This new structure preserves our deep, ongoing relationship with MassMutual while providing the agility to accelerate our roadmap and deliver the next generation of products that independent advisors need to succeed," Lane said.
The announcement at Flourish comes shortly after another update last week by cash management firm Max, which partnered with Fieldpoint Private to launch a turnkey private banking platform for RIAs. That platform, Benchmark, is aimed at advisors breaking away from wirehouses who need to replace in-house banking services for wealthy clients.
According to survey research by Cerulli, 83% of wirehouse advisors consider access to high-net-worth services – including private banking – as an advantage of operating with their current firm. Another 88% of wirehouse advisors said the same about access to lending products.
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