Asia’s most exciting founders of B2C robo-advisors

Chonladet Khemarattana, Robowealth

Robo-advisors are cropping up in every major Southeast Asian market, of which Thailand is the largest (after Singapore), with a mutual-funds industry managing about $130 billion. (Indonesia, by contrast, is about $40 billion.)

One of two leading Thai robo-advisors, Robowealth Mutual Fund Brokerage Securities has developed links with Lu International, an arm of Ping An, along with other tiers of business. (Its rival is wealthtech firm Finnomena.)

“Our vision is about market segmentation,” said Chonladet Khemarattana, Robowealth’s co-founder and CEO.

Robowealth is not a pure digital play. Its foundation as a traditional brokerage business, with relationship managers selling investment products to wealthy customers. “This is our cash cow,” Chonladet said. But its growth is limited, so the company has been focusing its efforts on three digital opportunities.

The startup has established services for the mass market, for premium investors, and as a technology partner for banks or other wealth distributors.

Chonladet says embedding investments into daily lives is key for winning the retail market: for example, by allowing micro investments as part of a daily budgeting process. Robowealth is approaching this by allowing users of its mobile app, odini, to invest on behalf of others: to invest for one’s parents, for example, or for children. The investing itself is left to the algorithm based on a user’s risk appetite.

Robowealth also has an app for financial advisors and relationship managers, Indego, and a software licensing company, Codefin, that serves asset managers, brokers and banks.

Chonladet is most excited about the company’s premium robo business. In November 2020, it launched a new brand, FinVest, which is a partnership with Lu and Kasikornbank. Investors can link the app to their bank account to receive a curated portfolio service, akin to what a private bank offers in Thailand. This includes a biweekly investment committee meeting to update users on asset allocation and fund selection ideas.

“Our challenge isn’t customer acquisition,” Chonladet said. “It’s how to increase the assets per client, and that’s why we’ve launched this premium service.”

FinVest is designed to compete directly with banks’ wealth-management departments – even as Robowealth partners with banks to sell its technology. It gets access to KBank’s marketing budget, while Lu provides the front-end experience and Robowealth uses its local connectivity to the stock exchange, mobile wallets, and settlement systems. In effect, Robowealth becomes the middle and back office to Lu’s front-end app. The service is aimed at KBank customers but its open architecture means customers from other commercial banks can also join.

Robowealth has raised a Series A funding round led by KBank’s venture arm, but it’s still burning cash. The company is looking to raise a Series B round to help it expand into Indonesia, Vietnam and other regional markets.