Harness Wealth, a financial advice platform for startup founders and employees, has recently expanded into the tax advisory space with a $17 million extension to its Series A round. This brings the total financing for the company to $32 million.
The platform offers an innovative approach to solving complex financial issues for its clients. Harness Wealth has developed a tax advisory platform that powers the practices of top tax advisors and provides integrated services to address the financial complexities faced by its consumer clients. In addition to this, the company also serves as a marketplace for discovering advisors and services, and provides consumer financial insight tools.
The company has experienced significant growth since its last raise in June 2021, boasting a 10x increase in its client base and a 1588% increase in gross revenue. While exact numbers were not disclosed, the company’s CEO and co-founder, David Snider, shared that Harness Wealth now serves a diverse range of clients, including tech founders, pro athletes, renowned artists, Amazon board members, and even an “iconic” journalist.
Previously, Harness Wealth focused primarily on providing services to tech employees due to the booming capital market activities and the increasing demand for managing equity in this population. However, the company identified a gap in the market for high-quality, digitally enabled tax services, which led to its expansion into the tax advisory space.
“The needs of this group drove us to the gap in the market for high-quality, digitally enabled, tax services,” said Snider. To fill this gap, Harness Wealth partnered with experienced tax advisors who brought their significant client roster to the platform. Consequently, many of these clients also became clients of Harness Wealth.
But the company has bigger plans in store with its new tax advisory platform. Snider believes that the platform will be beneficial for a wider range of clientele, not just the super-rich. This has been further validated by Harness Wealth’s partnerships with two of the largest financial institutions in the U.S.
“There are thousands of tech ecosystem builders, as well as other ‘builders’ such as small business owners, professional service executives, and investors, who could benefit from our services,” explained Snider.
The decision to build a proprietary tax solution was also influenced by recent changes in tax laws, particularly the Inflation Reduction Act. These changes have significant implications for high-income individuals, leading to “a massive increase in taxpayer audits,” according to Snider, who previously served as the CFO at Compass.
In simple terms, the new platform “powers the collaboration between tax advisors and their clients,” said the company. Three-fourths of Harness Wealth’s clients come through advisors who have joined the platform, while the remaining 25% are direct consumers.
The latest financing round was led by Three Fish Capital, the venture arm of the Galvin Family, founders of Motorola. Existing investor Jackson Square Ventures also participated, along with Northwestern Mutual Ventures and Paul Edgerley, former co-head of Bain Capital private equity. Other notable investors include Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff, Alleycorp’s Kevin Ryan, Compass founder Ori Allon, Angi’s Oisin Hanrahan, and Edith Cooper, a director on the boards of Pepsico and Amazon. While the company did not disclose its valuation, extension rounds usually result in flat valuations.
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