Lumiant, client engagement SAAS solution for financial advisers, approaches go-live date and smashes funding goal

Australian financial advice software as a service (SaaS) platform Lumiant has opened up shares in its business to everyday Australians, with leading Australian equity crowdfunding platform Equitise overseeing the up to $1.5 million raise.

Launching today, the company has already surpassed the minimum funding target of $250,000. This raise will close successfully on 16 December.

Lumiant is Australia’s first technology platform which aims to provide a holistic and interactive end-to-end client engagement process for financial advisers and their clients. Through a series of goals and values focussed modules, Lumiant helps financial advisers guide their clients through a process that uncovers what is most meaningful to them, allowing the adviser to tailor their clients’ financial strategies in a way that supports the making of dreams — not just the management of money.

Lumiant founder and CEO elect – Santiago Burridge, says structural changes taking place in the industry are ensuring that clients of financial advisers not only comprehend the advice they are receiving, but engage with it meaningfully.

“If there is one thing that COVID 19 has taught us is that there is much more to life than money; that it is time to live our lives much closer to our values, to align our money with our values and drive more purpose out of what we have created,” he said.

Mr Burridge said that for too long, great financial advisers have been constrained by a product focused industry. This inspired him to build a tech platform where the value of financial advice can be truly recognised, “where an adviser can proudly say their clients’ lives are better for the value of the advice they received”.

Co-founder of Australia’s leading Equity Crowdfunding platform Equitise, Jonny Wilkinson, says that “having worked with so many fintechs we were surprised to discover the lack of technological advancement in the financial advice industry”.

“Tools focused on product and the middle to back office advice process, limited both the financial adviser and their client. Similar to what we’ve seen in the banking industry, it’s time for financial advice technology to be more customer centric and tailored, which is why we thought Lumiant was such a good idea.’’

Consumer confidence, regulatory complexity, investment market volatility and a business model without access to the right technology for decades has made the financial advisory sector primed for disruption and with less than 20% of Australians* seeking financial advice, it’s clear it needs to evolve quickly.

Mr Burridge said progressive advisers “can’t wait to access an innovative, fairer, and more transparent solution that will help them to build better businesses, create stronger communities, manage more clients and live better lives”.

“These advice businesses — including sole traders, partnerships, and larger adviser networks — remain underserved and undervalued by the traditional financial institutions, and are often constrained by legacy business models, technologies, and procedures,” he said.

“Advisers are tired of having to manage their business via a patchwork of ill-conceived, product-based technologies. It is costing them time, money and adding to the stress of running an advice business.” 

The Lumiant SaaS solution in the final stages of development and the company plans to go-live with its first tranche of adviser clients in early 2021.