FINNY just raised $17 million, and honestly, it’s about time someone tried to fix prospecting for financial advisors.
The New York startup announced its Series A round on December 22, led by Venrock. What really caught my eye, though, was seeing William McNabb’s name on the investor list. McNabb ran Vanguard for years—not exactly the type to throw money at every shiny fintech that crosses his desk. When someone with that kind of track record backs you, it means something. Y Combinator, Maple VC, and Crossbeam Ventures also put money in, bringing FINNY’s total raised past $20 million.
Let’s Talk About Why This Matters
Here’s the thing about being a financial advisor: the job is supposed to be about helping people plan for retirement, manage their wealth, and sleep better at night. But in reality? A huge chunk of the day goes to hunting for new clients.
And it’s brutal. You’re buying lead lists that are half garbage, making awkward cold calls, going to networking events where you collect business cards from people who’ll never call you back. You’re basically throwing spaghetti at the wall and hoping something sticks. There’s got to be a better way, right?
That’s where FINNY comes in. Their platform uses AI to analyze massive amounts of data and figure out who’s actually likely to become a client. Not just anyone with money—people who genuinely need advisory services and are ready to hire someone. Then it automates the outreach and learns from what works and what doesn’t.
It sounds almost too good to be true, which is probably why they needed someone like McNabb to vouch for them.
How Does This Thing Actually Work?
FINNY’s platform digs through demographic data, financial signals, behavioral patterns—all the stuff that might indicate someone’s in the market for an advisor. Maybe they just sold a business. Maybe they’re approaching retirement. Maybe they inherited money and have no idea what to do with it.
The system builds profiles on these prospects, then helps advisors reach out with messages that actually make sense for that person’s situation. And here’s the clever part: as advisors use it and see what converts, the AI gets better at predicting what’ll work next time. It’s constantly learning.
For an advisor who’s already juggling dozens of client relationships, this could be a game-changer. Imagine spending your evenings with your family instead of making cold calls. Imagine focusing on the people who are actually interested instead of chasing ghosts.
So What’s FINNY Going to Do With the Money?
They’re hiring—engineers and data scientists, mainly. Which makes sense if you’re trying to build smarter AI. FINNY’s betting big that this is the right moment for this kind of tool. AI is everywhere now, and even the most old-school industries are starting to figure out how to use it. Wealth management has been slow on the uptake, but that’s changing.
And let’s be clear: nobody’s trying to replace financial advisors with robots. People want a real human being helping them with their money. What FINNY’s offering is basically a really smart assistant that handles the tedious parts so advisors can focus on actually advising.
Will It Work?
That’s the million-dollar question. Or I guess the $17 million question.
FINNY’s got strong backers and a real problem to solve. Every advisor I’ve ever talked to complains about prospecting. But having a good idea and $20 million doesn’t guarantee success. They need to prove this thing works across different types of practices, in different markets, with different kinds of clients.
The advisor tech space is crowded. Everyone’s got a platform that promises to revolutionize something. And advisors are busy—they’re not going to adopt another tool unless it really delivers.
But if FINNY can actually make prospecting less painful? If they can help advisors spend less time hunting and more time helping? That would be worth paying attention to. The funding round suggests some pretty smart people think they can pull it off.
Now comes the hard part: actually doing it.