{"id":10618,"date":"2025-09-09T00:22:10","date_gmt":"2025-09-09T00:22:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/10618\/"},"modified":"2025-09-09T00:22:10","modified_gmt":"2025-09-09T00:22:10","slug":"ex-sharesies-managers-raise-4-6m-for-marloo-their-ai-assistant-for-financial-advisers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/10618\/","title":{"rendered":"Ex-Sharesies managers raise $4.6m for Marloo, their AI assistant for financial advisers"},"content":{"rendered":"

There was also support in the classic NZ Inc \u201cpay it forward style\u201d. Ex-Rocket Lab engineer Craig Piggott, who founded virtual fencing firm Halter with help from his old boss, Sir Peter Beck, chipped in to Marloo\u2019s seed round.<\/p>\n

So did Lala and Michel\u2019s old boss, Sharesies founder Leighton Roberts.<\/p>\n

And Upstock and Xero cofounder Philip Fierlinger<\/a> and former FirstAML<\/a> COO Sam Halse also pitched in.<\/p>\n

Individual backers from outside NZ include Revolut<\/a>\u2019s UK-based chief legal officer Tom Hambrett and Tom Kelly, cofounder of Australia\u2019s Heidi Health<\/a> \u2013 the AI scribe being trialed<\/a> by Health NZ Te Whatu Ora and adopted<\/a> by private practices.<\/p>\n

Industry changes<\/p>\n

Lala, now based in Sydney, tells the Herald: \u201cAt Sharesies, Hardy and I both saw how transformative good financial advice could be, and through speaking to and engaging with advisers, it sparked an idea that we could do something meaningful in this space. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe could see there was a problem to solve \u2013 advisers were underwater. There\u2019s been a massive macro shift in the industry,” he says. <\/p>\n

\u201cCompliance requirements have increased significantly, there are significant pricing pressures, incentives have traditionally been misaligned, and cost pressures have led many businesses to use outsourced admin and back-office, particularly in Asia.\u201d <\/p>\n

Lala says he and his cofounders spent the second half of last year talking to individual advisors, plus those at small-to-medium firms and big Kiwisaver funds to gain a more detailed understanding of their roles. Most wanted to spend more time with clients.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe paperwork mountain was killing them. We knew we could build the \u2018extra you\u2019 these advisers desperately needed.\u201d<\/p>\n

\""Marloo“Marloo turns meetings into documents that sound like you wrote them, connects everything across all client interactions, then makes years of records and files instantly actionable for any new output you need,” cofounder Shakeel Lala says.<\/p>\n

That \u201cextra you\u201d is now on the market in the form of Marloo.<\/p>\n

But the fact-finding continues. Lala and his team have now talked to more than 800 advisors across NZ, Australia and the firm\u2019s third market, the UK, he says.<\/p>\n

Lala says recent studies, including the 2023 Deakin University-led New Zealand Financial Advisors WellBeing Report<\/a>, show time spent on administration has risen and that compliance is the top stressor for advisers. At the same time, recent regulatory monitoring of advice files found record-keeping gaps<\/a> in most reviews. <\/p>\n

This administrative burden and the FMA\u2019s recent Financial Advice Provider Monitoring Insights Report<\/a> both highlight the urgent need for technology to do more of the heavy lifting, he says.<\/p>\n

Lala also mucked in directly, gaining a New Zealand Certificate in Financial Services (Level 5) to become an academically qualified financial adviser himself.<\/p>\n

Battle scars<\/p>\n

\u201cWe weren\u2019t just looking for capital \u2013 we were deliberately seeking experienced founders and connectors who could act as advisers. Building an international business from day one meant we wanted people in our corner who have the battle scars from scaling globally,\u201d Lala says.<\/p>\n

\u201cBlackbird stood out because they work with founders at our stage to experiment, test and validate ideas before building large businesses around them.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"BlackbirdBlackbird Ventures general partner Samantha Wong says Marloo’s approach reminds her of the early days of Canva. <\/p>\n

Name-checking Blackbird\u2019s original hit, general partner Samantha Wong said Marloo\u2019s \u201cglobal-first mindset and product-led strategy reminds us of the early days of Canva.\u201d<\/p>\n

Local investors Piggott, Roberts and (American transplanted to Wellington) Fierlinger appealed because \u201cthese are people who have experience growing innovative businesses that challenge the norm\u201d, Lala says. <\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s no substitute for people who\u2019ve done it before.\u201d<\/p>\n

Keeping base in NZ<\/p>\n

Auckland Grammar old boy Lala has relocated to Sydney. His firm also has a satellite office in London.<\/p>\n

But he says: \u201cWe\u2019re New Zealand-founded with our engineering team and local go-to-market based in Wellington. <\/p>\n

\u201cHaving our development team here is important because we can test new features with local advisers in real-time, and we\u2019re growing rapidly in the New Zealand market.\u201d<\/p>\n

Chris Keall is an Auckland-based member of the Herald\u2019s business team. He joined the Herald in 2018 and is the technology editor and a senior business writer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There was also support in the classic NZ Inc \u201cpay it forward style\u201d. Ex-Rocket Lab engineer Craig Piggott,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10619,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[13103,13107,13105,365,2731,138,627,13101,1644,2082,738,194,13106,13102,13104,1132,13110,111,139,69,13108,6791,2515,2081,13109,165,102],"class_list":["post-10618","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-46m","tag-a42","tag-advisers","tag-ai","tag-assistant","tag-business","tag-entrepreneurs","tag-exsharesies","tag-financial","tag-for","tag-funding","tag-kiwi","tag-maker","tag-managers","tag-marloo","tag-million","tag-mix","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-preseed","tag-prominent","tag-raise","tag-raised","tag-several","tag-their","tag-with"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10618","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10618"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10618\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10619"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10618"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10618"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10618"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}