GuardianWealth

Mission
GuardianWealth will empower people who have been historically excluded from the global economy to build wealth that lasts.

Value Proposition
GuardianWealth seeks to empower underserved communities to build wealth through our digital financial advisory application. We will equip our users with wealth building tools and educational content to achieve their financial goals. We have built an online application that personalizes savings and investment plans based on our user’s financial status, saving goals, and risk preferences.

 

In the U.S., we are focused on serving communities of color and immigrants, who face hurdles in achieving financial security. Our application provides a soft landing to these communities by digitizing existing informal saving practices. Our Saving Circle features allows our users to save with family and friends, a common practice among many in this demography.  In addition, our users can be awarded with an increase in their credit score further increasing the value they get for using our Saving Circle. Our goal is to support our users along their financial journey, helping them progress from Saving Circles to eventually saving with our long-term investment plans that enable them to grow their wealth.

 

Volatile currencies and high inflationary pressures make building wealth in emerging markets difficult. Additionally, many emerging markets have a rising middle class that is overlooked by the existing financial advisory industry, which focuses on high net wealth individuals. Our tech-enabled platform allows people at all income levels to diversify their wealth by building savings and investment plans denominated in USD. Our signature product is a mobile application that allows users to invest in diversified portfolios of U.S. stocks and bonds. Our proprietary algorithm will suggest these portfolios based on the user’s risk profile and financial goals. Users can easily track and manage their investments, including monitoring their progress toward specific savings goals such as buying a home or retiring with $1M.
 
 Target Markets
We are focused on Black and Brown Americans, immigrant communities and emerging markets. In phase 1, we will launch in the U.S. and the two largest economies in Africa and South Asia, Nigeria and India.

Market Opportunity
Our total addressable market is north of $100B. There is an opportunity to provide wealth building tools solutions to over 10million working-class Black and Brown Americans. Also, in Nigeria and India where robo-advisory solutions are at infancy we have a first mover or a second mover advantage. These are frontier markets that would drive the future growth of the global economy.  They have a rising middle class that is highly tech savvy and is actively seeking tools like ours to build wealth sustainably.  Combined we are looking at a middle-class population of over 300M.  For this population, building in US$ is a priority given persistent currency devaluations and inflationary pressure. For example, over the last 10 years Nigeria’s local currency has devalued from $1= 158 to $1= 460. In addition, both countries have high single digit inflation rates.
 
 Business Model
In emerging market will charge customers a competitive advisory fee based on the amount people choose to save or invest with us.  However, the U.S. would be a monthly subscription. 

 

Milestones
To date, we have built an MVP product, formalized a partnership with a U.S. brokerage firm for expansion across Africa, secured our investment advisor registration with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, almost finalized our registration with the Nigerian Securities and Exchange Commission, and raised $60k from friends and family. 

 Team
We currently have 3 team members. Our Founder and CEO a 2020 MBA graduate of Harvard Business School with over 7 years of experience in private equity, focus on digital financial services in Sub Saharan Africa. She has completed CFA I and II, has passed the Series 65 exam, and is now a Registered Investment Advisor with the U.S. SEC. She is working on GuardianWealth full-time, and brings deep expertise in investment management and finance. Her co-founder and section mate,  a 2020 MBA graduate of HBS and serves as GuardianWealth’s CTO. He has over 5 years in the consumer sector in India and is leveraging his software engineering and project management skills to oversee the build of the proprietary algorithm. The third Co-Founder is the full-time Managing Director in Nigeria, brings over 7 years of investment management experience in West Africa, as well as an MBA. We are currently seeking to add marketing expertise to our team and have partnered with a marketing firm to oversee our impending launch.