Automated investment company manages over $500 million in assets

Automated investment services company Wealthfront has made its name over the past two years as an alternative to traditional financial advisory services like Fidelity for individuals, who are just starting to pull their savings together. Today the company, the brainchild of former Benchmark Capital founder Andy Rachleff, is announcing that it manages over $538 million assets, making it the largest and one of the fastest-growing software-based financial advisors.

After five years of trying, online investment management firm Wealthfront seems to have hit on a formula that works. Its assets under management jumped nearly five-fold last year to top $500m. Of course, this hardly counts as a drop in the bucket in an industry where huge scale really matters. Wealthfront started out as a co-investment site under the name kaChing, launched in 2008 by former Benchmark Capital partner Andy Rachleff. Like Covestor and similar services, it was aimed at individual investors who wanted to track – and match – the portfolios of other successful investors. Motto: “kaChing is here to rock the investing world”.