Marloo cofounders Shakeel Lala (left) and Hardy Michel.
Marloo, the maker of an AI assistant for financial advisers, has raised A$4.2 million ($4.6m) in pre-seed funding – with several prominent Kiwi entrepreneurs in the mix.
Its pitch is that wealth-planning, insurance and mortgage advisers are drowning in paperwork – and that its AI can save them the equivalent of a day a week in compliance and admin tasks.
The 15-month-old start-up, now running as a transtasman operation, was founded in Wellington in June last year by Shakeel Lala and Hardy Michel (both previously managers with Sharesies) with Ben Robertson, who has been involved in two start-ups in the capital: Roadtrip (for calculating road user chargers) and hospo app Upstock.
The seed raise was led by Australasia’s largest venture capital firm, Blackbird, with support from Auckland-based Brand Fund (in turn backed by Previously Unavailable and Icehouse Ventures) and Sydney-based Co Ventures.
There was also support in the classic NZ Inc “pay it forward style”. 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’s seed round.
So did Lala and Michel’s old boss, Sharesies founder Leighton Roberts.
And Upstock and Xero cofounder Philip Fierlinger and former FirstAML COO Sam Halse also pitched in.
Individual backers from outside NZ include Revolut’s UK-based chief legal officer Tom Hambrett and Tom Kelly, cofounder of Australia’s Heidi Health – the AI scribe being trialed by Health NZ Te Whatu Ora and adopted by private practices.
Lala, now based in Sydney, tells the Herald: “At 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.
“We could see there was a problem to solve – advisers were underwater. There’s been a massive macro shift in the industry," he says.
“Compliance 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.”
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.
“The paperwork mountain was killing them. We knew we could build the ‘extra you’ these advisers desperately needed.”
That “extra you” is now on the market in the form of Marloo.
But the fact-finding continues. Lala and his team have now talked to more than 800 advisors across NZ, Australia and the firm’s third market, the UK, he says.
Lala says recent studies, including the 2023 Deakin University-led New Zealand Financial Advisors WellBeing Report, 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 in most reviews.
This administrative burden and the FMA’s recent Financial Advice Provider Monitoring Insights Report both highlight the urgent need for technology to do more of the heavy lifting, he says.
Lala also mucked in directly, gaining a New Zealand Certificate in Financial Services (Level 5) to become an academically qualified financial adviser himself.
“We weren’t just looking for capital – 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,” Lala says.
“Blackbird stood out because they work with founders at our stage to experiment, test and validate ideas before building large businesses around them.”
Name-checking Blackbird’s original hit, general partner Samantha Wong said Marloo’s “global-first mindset and product-led strategy reminds us of the early days of Canva.”
Local investors Piggott, Roberts and (American transplanted to Wellington) Fierlinger appealed because “these are people who have experience growing innovative businesses that challenge the norm”, Lala says.
“There’s no substitute for people who’ve done it before.”
Auckland Grammar old boy Lala has relocated to Sydney. His firm also has a satellite office in London.
But he says: “We’re New Zealand-founded with our engineering team and local go-to-market based in Wellington.
“Having our development team here is important because we can test new features with local advisers in real-time, and we’re growing rapidly in the New Zealand market.”
Chris Keall is an Auckland-based member of the Herald’s business team. He joined the Herald in 2018 and is the technology editor and a senior business writer.