Cavanagh founders launch robo-adviser Munnypot in UK
A "chat-based" robo-advisor created by the founders of financial advisory company Cavanagh Group has soft-launched with a range of corporate partners including financial institutions Virtual Affairs, Ortec Finance and Five Degrees. The mobile-driven interface asks simple questions to guide users through modelled scenarios that outline how their investments could change after different decisions. The start-up has already secured the backing of investment manager SEI.
Munnypot, a mobile-first robo-advisor service created by the former founders of financial advisory firm Cavanagh Group, has soft-launched in the UK with a range of corporate partners.

Munnypot, which provides an intuitive WhatsApp style ‘chat-based’ user-interface that guides people in their savings and investment decisions, has already secured the backing of SEI wealth management. New partners now include Virtual Affairs, Ortec Finance and Five Degrees.



Users begin by answering simple questions online to define their life goals. They can then 'play’ with different scenarios using five tracker products to understand how their financial future could be affected by different decisions. Clients are kept abreast of performance and advised of possible decisions to make if the investment outlook changes.



Brett Williams, managing director, SEI Wealth Platform, UK Private Banking, comments: “We believe (Munnypot) will be a disruptive brand in the UK market and think the company’s user experience, mobile-first design and simplicity will greatly appeal to a broad range of consumers, not just the tech savvy mass affluent millennials. The innovative ongoing alert and messaging framework is extremely powerful and gives customers the chance to be regularly updated on their financial matters.”



The startup has been set up by Simon Redgrove and Andrew Fay, who previously founded Cavanagh Group, which was sold to Close Brother in May 2011 for £26.2m with assets under advice in excess of £1.5bn.



Says Redgrove: "We’re planning on shaking up the market and have partnered with some state-of-the-art organisations to help us do that. The initial response we’ve had from consumers has been overwhelmingly positive and we’re looking forward to quickly building our customer base in 2017."