In the United States it is much more complicated to save properly for retirement age, and Pontera wants financial advisors to be a little easier to manage their clients’ portfolios
Photo: Eyal Marilius
The startup FeeX announces today the change of name to Pontera, as well as the completion of 3 different rounds of funding totaling $ 80 million. All rounds were led by Lightspeed and participated in Hanaco, The Founders Kitchen, Blumberg Capital, Hyperwise Ventures and more.
In the United States it is more difficult to save for retirement
In Israel your pension advisor can get quite a bit of information about you and all your savings easily, but in the United States, as usual, the bureaucracy can become unbearable. Financial advisers find it difficult to manage the savings plans of clients scattered among different providers, and they have to do it with piles of paperwork and even ask for the username and password of the insured. Instead, Pontera’s platform allows advisors to securely access all of their clients’ financial products, thus enabling them to manage more efficiently and wisely – which is very necessary for American savers who are required to plan their retirement themselves.
Photo: Pontera
“The system combines machine learning tools to analyze and normalize everything that is done in accounts, transferring information through software interfaces to other technological services that consultants use, and of course elements of cyber protection and high-level information security,” explains Yoav Tzurel, CEO of Puntra. “Our solution is focused on long-term savings such as 401K plans (pension savings), college 529 savings and more.” According to him, active management of savings can improve the portfolio by 3-4% net each year, which can lead to potential savings of up to 75% at retirement age. And if you’re wondering why the company decided to change its name after a decade, Tsurel claims that they have received a lot of customer feedback because it “does not reflect the new product”, and the Latin word Pont means “bridge”, like a retirement bridge. managing director
They wanted it to happen faster
We come across quite a few stories of Israeli startups completing recruitment rounds, but not often do startups hold back and prefer to report several recruitments in one go. In the case of Pontra, as mentioned, these are 3 fundraisers, and when asked about Giktiim, it was stated that in May 2020, $ 8 million was raised, in February 2021, $ 27 million was raised and at the end of 2021, $ 45 million was raised. When I asked Tzurel about the meaning of the split and why it’s not easy to raise $ 80 million (an amount after 2021 seems almost like a standard A fundraiser), he explained that “we believe in an approach of raising what is needed and at reasonable values for the stage we are at.”
‘Our logic is that too high a value at too early a stage is a situation to be avoided and at the same weight one should be careful not to over-dilute. “Therefore, we were right to split the recruitments at increasing values with increasing amounts, in the face of the progress of the product and the company in the target market,” said Tzurel. But Fontra, or as it is known by its former name, FeeX, is a veteran fox in the startup scene, and was founded about a decade ago, with meanwhile year-old startups coming to exits, offerings and huge fundraisers. Although Zurel is not moved by the comparison to others, he seems to be connected to reality as well.
‘Did we think it would happen faster? Of course, ‘he confesses. ‘I remember when we set up the company we were told that it takes startups an average of 12 years to succeed. I was 27 then and an optimistic entrepreneur I said to myself, ok this is the average, but for us it will probably take 3 years. In the end, it took us 6 years to get to the real Pete Market product, when on the way we went through almost all the known dramas that startups tend to go through during their journey. “
In the past, FeeX has mainly dealt with the development of a platform for reducing management fees and commissions for financial entities, but in recent years has focused more on long-term savings. Pontera was founded in April 2012 by Uri Levin, the company’s chairman and first investor, who is also the former founder and president of Waze, along with Yoav Tzurel (CEO), Eyal Halachmi (CTO) and David Weiss (CPO). The company currently employs about 120 people, 80 of them at the R&D center in Israel. To date, the company has raised $ 99 million.
A good old age
Born with a joystick in hand. He has far too many gadgets and far too little free time to play with them all. An unexplained hammer holder for calibrating device batteries. When he’s not busy writing about technology, he likes to talk about it, and a lot
