Betterment acquires rival WealthSimple’s US business

The deal will give see WealthSimple pull out of the US market and give Betterment about 17,400 additional customers with assets under management of $190 million. Betterment currently has 600,000 customers and $28 billion in AUM.

Betterment won the business in a competitive bidding process for which the size of the transaction was not disclosed.

Betterment will not be acquiring any technology, employees, or operations as a part of the deal.

Backed by C$114 million in equity financing that was raised last Autumn, WelathSimple has been broadening its focus of late, moving into areas such as savings and spending, crypto assets, and peer-to-peer payments. The funding round gave the company a $1.5 billion valuation.

Michael Katchen, co-founder and CEO of Wealthsimple, comments: “As we shift our focus to our Canadian business for the time being, finding a partner for our US business that shared our commitment to putting clients first was our top priority.”