After 17 Years, Fintech Wealthfront Files For An IPO, Disclosing Fat Profits

Wealthfront, a 17-year-old fintech company that offers automated portfolios of stocks and bonds and interest-bearing cash accounts to consumers, has registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission to go public. With just 330 employees, it has 1.3 million customers and $88 billion in total assets under management. Historically, Wealthfront has catered to tech workers and other well-off Millennials–its average customer is 38 years old and earns more than $100,000 annually.

In the year ending July 31, 2025, Wealthfront’s revenue grew 26% to $339 million, according to its S-1 regulatory filing. Its net profit reached $123 million, a decline from the year prior due primarily to a large deferred-tax benefit in 2024. It was last valued at $2 billion late last year in a tender offer, when it let employees sell their private Wealthfront stock.

The Palo Alto company is now planning to expand into mortgages. According to its website, it will soon offer mortgages with interest rates that are about “0.5% below the national average.” It’s currently licensed to provide mortgages in five states–California, Colorado, Connecticut, Michigan and Texas–according to a person familiar with the company’s plans.

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Cofounded in 2008 by Andy Rachleff (who was earlier a cofounder of the venture capital firm Benchmark), Wealthfront started life with a different name and business model. Operating under the name of KaChing, it began as a marketplace where investors paid for access to professional money managers of their choosing. The idea flopped. Rachleff renamed it Wealthfront and pivoted in 2011 to provide managed investment portfolios, algorithmically designed to fit investors’ time horizons and risk tolerance, at a rock-bottom fee. It was a business—now known as robo-advising—that New York startup Betterment had pioneered a year and a half prior.

But Wealthfront’s growth really took off after it began offering interest-bearing cash management accounts in 2019, beating other major fintechs like Robinhood to that market. By consistently offering competitive interest rates, it has attracted even more dollars to its cash accounts than its automated stock and bond portfolios, amassing $47 billion in total assets in consumer cash accounts, compared with $42 billion in investment accounts. Now, with interest rates coming down, Wealthfront is looking to additional products for growth.

David Fortunato, Wealthfront’s third employee (he joined in 2009), was named chief technology officer in 2011, president in 2019 and CEO in 2021.

For the business’ entire history, it has tried to keep costs low so that it can charge small fees and still make a profit. Its first office was previously occupied by a dry cleaner, and Fortunato personally assembled 40 Ikea desks (purchased at $130 each) for new hires. Rachleff pushed Wealthfront to use software to automate everything. “If we couldn’t automate it, we wouldn’t deliver it,” Rachleff, now the chairman, told Forbes last year.

It started out charging (and still charges) just 0.25% of assets for its investment accounts, undercutting both typical financial advisors, whose fees then averaged 1.3%, and Betterment, which subsequently lowered its prices and now also charges 0.25% of assets for regular stock and bond portfolios.

The company spent just $6 million on marketing in all of 2023, but Fortunato has ramped that up ahead of its IPO. In the three months ending in July 2025, Wealthfront burned $9 million, or about 10% of its revenue, on marketing. This heightened focus on growth foreshadows a challenge Wealthfront will face as a public company: expanding fast enough to satisfy Wall Street investors. Since going public in June, digital bank Chime’s stock has fallen, partly due to investor concerns about future growth. Like Chime, Wealthfront also has deep-pocketed incumbent competitors–namely Vanguard, Schwab and Fidelity.

Wealthfront’s low-cost approach allowed it to finally become profitable in 2023, the year after its planned acquisition by UBS for $1.4 billion was called off. It makes money through its 0.25% of assets annual robo-investing fee and, for its cash accounts, takes a spread, paying customers a slightly lower interest rate than what it receives from its bank partners. Wealthfront’s other products include single-stock investing, bond ladders that let you lock in higher interest rates and 529 college savings accounts.

Among Wealthfront’s largest shareholders are Rachleff, who owns 15%, and Fortunato, who has 8%. Other big bankers include Tiger Global (20%), DAG Ventures (12%), Index Ventures (11%) and Ribbit Capital (9%).