(Fintech Zoom) Fintech platform Oranj is “winding down operations” as of year-end, a spokesperson for the company has confirmed.
Oranj’s decision to stop operations was introduced to its advisor customers on Monday, the spokesperson stated. The platform opened its doors in March 2014.
Relationship managers at Oranj have been in contact with the agency’s 500-plus advisor affiliates to assist them transition to different fintech companies. Present Oranj rivals include Envestnet (VIP Messenger), Orion (VIP Messenger), Riskalyze and AdvisorEngine.
Information of Oranj’s closing, first reported by Financial Planning, prompted responses on Twitter.
Scott Salaske, CEO of Firstmetric, tweeted: “This is the problem with a lot of the new #FinTech solutions/companies. They have great and promising products, but can’t compete with the big dogs and the big dogs are not good and often have old technology solutions. Sad!”
Jeff Levine, tax specialist with Kitces.com and Buckingham Wealth Partners, tweeted: “ Ouch. Oranj giving advisors just 6 weeks to find replacement technology. In normal times, making the shift to new rebalancing software in that short a span would be tough… But on top of year-end planning? And w/ holidays? During a pandemic?”
The closure of Oranj comes seven months after Motif Investing shut its doorways.
“This is the tip of the ‘tip of the iceberg’; I estimate that we’ll lose 20% of the firms in [Michael] Kitces’ fintech map by this time next year,” stated Doug Fritz, founder and president of F2 Technique in late April. “Many will be purchased or consumed by their equity backers. Others will close.”
Some 62% of these taking ThinkAdvisor’s Twitter ballot in April agreed. They stated Motif’s closure undoubtedly or probably signaled additional closures of funding administration platforms, versus 38% who noticed additional shutdowns as “not necessarily” probably. (Eighty people took the survey.)
The Motif shutdown is “a harbinger of what’s to come for other small digital players, as revenues get taken out of the investment supply chain,” stated Tim Welsh, head of the consultancy Nexus Technique, on the time. “Scale means everything now, so you have to be big to make a go of it.”
Others, like Ezra Group CEO Craig Iskowitz, agree that “many closing announcements” are to come back. “We’ve seen exponential growth in the number of companies trying to squeeze into this space, especially around digital advice,” he defined earlier this yr.
