Former Finance Logix CEO Oleg Tishkevich is forming a strategic partnership with Envestnet as his new company, Invent.us, works to become the wealthtech firm's de facto API whisperer. The two firms announced a partnership that will see Invent.us supporting Envestnet's enterprise clients as they weigh moving cloud-based platform solutions to a new cloud-native architecture.
For advisors not familiar with cloud-native platforms, think of Uber or PayPal, said Tishkevich, as he explained what his firm will be doing. These firms were built for the cloud from the start. PayPal, for example is so optimized for its environment that it can be the point of sale embedded within a website, he explained, but the site itself doesn't indicate this is the case. Consumer-driven firms like Uber and PayPal can quickly iterate and change, if they need to, and can scale rapidly to integrate with many different components.
Financial services firms have lagged behind the consumer market, Tishkevich said, but Invent.us would allow them to move forward in their technology. "Many large firms that leverage the Envestnet platform often aspire to provide a more unique user experience for their advisors and their clients by blending the Envestnet platform with their own systems as well as tools from other third-party vendors," he added.
In the case of Envestnet, the firm has many different components that could be integrated with other firms' components or end-client uses cases. Instead of a bank and wealthtech company having to retool their APIs every time one of them made a change, API intermediary Invent.us would ensure that the separate platforms still communicated with each other and that there were no outages or miscommunications.
It's a natural fit for Envestnet to be working with Invent.us, given the former's focus on open APIs and partnerships, said Blake Wood, SVP and director of product strategy at Envestnet. The partnership would allow for better customization, he added.
"We're really kind of helping both vendors and financial services companies to move to a newer, better architecture, to make things much more flexible and adaptable," said Tishkevich. Cloud-native architecture is the way of the future, he explained. "There's a way to do things now that is faster."