Investment platform Public announcement On Monday, it raised $135 million in equity and debt funding amid strong growth in adoption of its AI-powered search capabilities.
The financing, which New York-based Public described as a Series D-2, included $105 million in equity and $30 million in debt, with a longtime backer. Accelerate as the main investor. Previously, the company, created 5 years ago, had raised more than $300 million in venture financing.
The public fundraising comes amid a robust investment period for developers of AI-based wealth management tools, a topic we covered this week. So far this year, growth-stage investments in wealth management have nearly tripled compared to last year, according to an analysis by Crunchbase. data.
In addition to building AI capabilities, many startups are also working to offer investments in more asset classes and open up more options that have historically been difficult to access.
The public is a good example of this. The company started in 2019 by offering commission-free fractional share investments, targeting younger, digitally native clients. Over the years it has added social features, cryptocurrencies, treasuries and fractional shares of artwork and collectibles. It’s recently extended in corporate bonds.
The company says it is seeing particularly strong growth for its embedded AI research tool, Alpha, which it says is now used by more than 90% of its members.
Like many investment startups, Public also anticipates particularly strong growth potential through generational wealth transfers. By 2045, the company estimates that a generation of digital natives will inherit $70 trillion in assets, including $28 trillion in stocks and bonds.
Increasingly, these digital natives plan to be mostly self-directed in their investments, relying on automated tools to build and track their portfolios, according to Public. At the same time, they expect these tools to offer increasingly sophisticated and understandable advice and portfolio monitoring.
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Illustration: Dom Guzman
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