Downtown economic management company launches ‘do-it-for-me’ financial commitment application

In the age of Robinhood and robo-advisers, a downtown economic administration agency is getting in on the financial commitment application fray.

Taylor Hoffman released its new stock-trading app identified as Avidus last thirty day period. The organization hopes to carve out a area of interest that pairs the investment app idea with in-house pros who deal with users’ investments.

Launched in 2017 and with $325 million under administration for higher internet-value clients, Taylor Hoffman is banking that it can leverage that knowledge to provide buyers to its app amid higher-profile competition like Robinhood.

Organization co-founder Brandon Taylor explained Avidus sets alone apart since the company’s employees tackle the grunt do the job of investing in stocks — as opposed to Robinhood, in which people take care of their investments themselves.

“We’re a person of the few ‘do-it-for-me’ apps. If you want to commit in shares but you want someone to do it for you, that is us,” Taylor stated.

End users can invest a minimum of $100 in Avidus. The firm at the moment delivers just one investment method crafted on stocks from 30 American firms throughout distinct sectors. More procedures are predicted in the future, probably to consist of alternate investments these kinds of as wine or art.

The enterprise generates earnings off the app with a 1 per cent administration price per account. Taylor, speaking previous week, stated the app experienced 60 buyers thus much.

The company financed the improvement of the application with $1.4 million in capital that was raised in a friends-and-household round in 2021.

Taylor stated the business utilised the pandemic months to system for the long term and landed on the application as a new presenting for present shoppers though also opening the corporation up to new shoppers.

“We used a lot of time for the duration of the pandemic wondering as a result of our lifestyle and the way where we desired to go,” he explained. “I imagine we felt like we wanted to do extra than we were undertaking and open up up experienced funds administration to persons who are younger and communities not historically qualified by Wall Street.”

Taylor said about 50 % of the firm’s clients are in the Richmond area, although the other half are somewhere else in the state nevertheless they also have some sort of Richmond relationship. The hope is that the Avidus app will permit the organization to crack out further than its usual networks to come across a broader national buyer base.

“‘Achieve scale’ is defined to us as bringing on folks none of us know,” Taylor mentioned.

The app is readily available on Apple’s App Shop. Taylor Hoffman formally released the application to the broader community in January just after a delicate launch in Oct.

The enterprise has 11 workers out of its 6,400-square-foot place of work in Two James Center.

Taylor, who has much more than 20 years of expertise in prosperity administration, started the firm with Gabe Hoffman numerous several years right after Taylor employed Hoffman at a significant Wall Road investment company all around 2013.

Taylor is a VCU alum and Hoffman graduated from Campbell University in North Carolina.

As for the Avidus moniker, the company experienced some problems in finding an unclaimed identify for the application, and eventually employed a consultant to aid the lookup.

That expert met with the crew and arrived up with 20 alternatives. Avidus, a portmanteau of “avid” and “us,” rose to the major because it suggested enthusiasm and neighborhood, Taylor claimed.

“We realized it was truly difficult,” Taylor mentioned. “Every cool identify you can think of had been taken.”