Bringing AI to Wealth Management
Sequoia by Anne Marie Boidock
Nevis raised $40 million to build AI for financial advisers. Its pitch is simple: let software do the admin, so humans can keep the trust.
Based on reporting by Sequoia, by Anne Marie Boidock — read the original for the full story.
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Mark Swan spent 2024 making a bet on a very specific pain point: wealth managers are drowning in admin, and that leaves too little time for the client work that actually matters. His answer is Nevis, a New York City AI platform for Registered Investment Advisors that says it can give advisers back 80% of the time they currently lose to paperwork, record-keeping and hunting through scattered systems.
That pitch has clearly found an audience. Nevis says its customer base includes some of the fastest-growing wealth management firms in the U.S., and those firms collectively oversee more than $50 billion in client assets. The company also came out of stealth in early December, after raising a $5 million seed round from Sequoia in 2024 and then a Series A of nearly $35 million in 2025 from Sequoia, ICONIQ and Ribbit Capital, for total funding of $40 million.
Swan didn’t arrive at the idea in a vacuum. He had just left Revolut, where he worked alongside co-founders Philipp Burda and Ivan Chalov, and saw firsthand how fast product teams can move when they know the domain. Burda and Chalov had built their own careers inside Revolut too, rising through finance, data science and product roles before joining Swan in Nevis. Sequoia noticed Swan early, even putting him on its list of “prefounders.”
The broader argument here is that trust, not automation for its own sake, is the product. Nevis’ system connects to CRMs, email and messenger apps, and document storage to help prepare meetings, generate performance reports and update client accounts. It intentionally goes beyond point tools, because the founders think regulated finance punishes half-built AI fast. The company’s go-to-market has also been unusually old-fashioned: in-person meetings, long drives, and enough face time to turn a coffee into a multi-hour strategy session.
Swan’s case is that AI should not replace advisers in wealth management; it should help them serve more people without wrecking the relationship. That is a healthier pitch than the usual “digital workers” bravado, and it matches the industry’s reality better than the hype merchants do. In finance, trust is the moat, not the marketing line.
My take — AI-written commentary, not fact-checked reporting
This is the right kind of AI story: boring on the surface, useful underneath. Wealth management does not need a chatbot with a blazer; it needs fewer tabs, fewer delays, and fewer fake promises from people selling magic. The companies that understand regulated work tend to win by being less theatrical, which is a refreshing change from the usual AI circus.
Read more about this at: Sequoia