Sherpas raises $3.2M seed to build AI-native operating layer for wealth management firms

Sherpas has closed a $3.2 million seed round, stepping into the spotlight at a moment when wealth management firms are under pressure to rethink how they deliver advice. The round was led by 1248, the family office of Mariner Wealth Advisors founder and CEO Marty Bicknell, with participation from AUA Private Equity Capital, GoHub Ventures, and a group of strategic investors from across the advisory ecosystem.

The timing is not accidental. Advisory firms are facing rising client expectations, growing planning demands, and increasing pressure to produce recommendations faster and with greater consistency. Yet many practices still rely on manual analysis, fragmented tools, and workflows that can stretch planning cycles into days.

Sherpas is betting that this model is ready for an overhaul.

Wealth management startup Sherpas raises $3.2M to to automate financial advice with AI-native infrastructure

The wealth management startup positions its platform as an AI-native operating layer for financial advice rather than another planning tool added to an already crowded tech stack. The software automates much of the analytical workload that typically sits behind investor intake, scenario modeling, and recommendation drafting. What once took days can now be produced in minutes, according to the company.

Founded in 2022, Sherpas, based in Wilmington, Delaware, is an AI-native infrastructure platform for wealth management firms. By standardizing how financial advice is analyzed, structured, and delivered, the company aims to help advisory organizations provide consistent, explainable decision-making across clients and teams.

The pitch is straightforward: the software handles the mechanical work so advisors can spend more time on strategy and client relationships. Sherpas says its system standardizes the analytical foundation for financial plans and investment proposals, aiming to deliver consistent, explainable outputs across client portfolios.

“Financial advice today is still heavily dependent on time and manual analysis,” said Borja Edo, Co-Founder and CEO of Sherpas. “That creates variability that firms don’t always see and can’t scale. Sherpas was built to standardize the analytical foundation of advice, delivering consistent, explainable recommendations in minutes rather than days. The goal isn’t to replace advisors. It’s to remove mechanical work so human judgment can operate at its highest level.”

Investor interest appears to be tied to real-world validation. Sherpas reports that the platform has already been tested inside large advisory organizations under compliance and operations oversight. Those deployments helped build conviction among backers that AI-native infrastructure could become core plumbing for modern wealth firms.

The round also brings industry veteran Steve Lockshin onto Sherpas’ board. Lockshin, the founder of Vanilla and AdvicePeriod, has long pushed for deeper modernization across wealth management technology.

“Advisory firms are at an inflection point,” said Lockshin. “The next decade won’t be defined by incremental technology upgrades, but by whether firms modernize their operating layer. Sherpas isn’t adding another tool to the stack; it’s building infrastructure that enables advice to be delivered with greater consistency, speed, and scale. That distinction matters.”

Behind the scenes, Sherpas is building a feedback loop between its analytical engine and advisor behavior. Each engagement feeds new data into the system, allowing the platform to refine how recommendations are structured and applied across client scenarios. Over time, the company believes that loop can compound into institutional knowledge that improves outcomes across advisory teams.

The new capital will fund deeper development across retirement, tax, investment, and risk-planning frameworks. Sherpas plans to expand integrations with enterprise systems commonly used by advisory firms and accelerate deployments across practices that want to modernize without adding headcount.

The broader shift is already underway across financial services. Firms that weave intelligence directly into their operating layer are starting to pull ahead on efficiency and consistency. Sherpas is positioning itself as the infrastructure layer that helps advisory organizations make that transition.