Retirement Planning Tools See Plentiful Funding

In popular culture, stereotypes of successful retirement are replete with imagery of golf courses, sunbelt condos and cruises. 

But in reality, retirement planning for most people is less about funding a luxury life of leisure and more about covering basics like grocery bills, housing expenses and even medical care, without a steady paycheck.

For a large share of American workers, 401k plans and IRA accounts play a big role in laying the groundwork for a successful retirement. And as contributions to these accounts grow, a host of startups are raising capital for tools and platforms to manage where the money is spent.

Per Crunchbase analysis, since last year over $900 million in venture and seed funding has gone to U.S. companies focused on retirement planning and investment tools. We lay out a list of 11 who have raised funding in the past year below:

The latest announcement comes from Pontera, formerly FeeX, which announced its name change and confirmed it raised $80 million across three funding rounds led by Lightspeed Venture Partners in the past 18 months, with the most recent, per Crunchbase, a $45 million round in November. The 10-year-old, New York-based Pontera provides tools for financial advisers to securely and compliantly manage clients’ retirement accounts.

The largest recent funding recipient, meanwhile, is San Mateo, California-based Guideline, a retirement platform for small businesses that has raised $339 million to date, including a $200 million Series E last summer led by General Atlantic.

Another major investment recipient is San Francisco-based Human Interest, which offers tools to help employees of small and medium-sized businesses save for retirement. The 7-year-old company raised $334 million to date, including a $200 million Series D in August.

Investors are also backing platforms for workers to invest retirement savings in nontraditional assets. The most recent big round along these lines was for iTrustCapital, a digital asset investment platform that allows clients to buy and sell cryptocurrencies through their retirement accounts. The Los Angeles company raised $125 million in a Series A round in January.

Illustration: Dom Guzman

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