Salt Lake City-based Vanilla Lands $35 Million in New Investment Round

With over $84 million raised since its 2019 founding, Vanilla helps wealth advisors, planners, and attorneys (and their firms) manage and maximize their estate planning efforts with a purpose-built SaaS platform that now serves over 10,000 end-clients with net worths ranging from $1 million to over $1 billion.

Leading this funding round was prior investor Insight Ventures, with previous investors such as Vanguard and Venrock also participating in this funding.

Additionally, leading financial services firms Allianz, Edward Jones Ventures, and Nationwide each joined this funding found as new strategic investors, as well as venture capital firm, Alumni Ventures.

Salt Lake City, Utah-based Vanilla has just closed a $35 million round of funding.

As the leading provider of estate planning software for wealth advisors/planners and attorneys, Vanilla has developed a purpose-built, online estate planning software platform that since its 2019 launch has grown to serve over 10,000 end-clients with net worth valuations ranging from $1 million to over $1 billion.

In other words, simple math shows that (at a minimum), Vanilla's platform is helping direct/manage over $11 billion in estate valuations.

NOTE: But to be honest, I suspect that number is significantly higher than that, like probably by a factor of 10X (in other words, over $110 billion). But that's just a guess.

That said, according to the Vanilla news release, Insight Ventures, a prior investor, led this current funding round, with other prior investors also participating in this funding, including Vanguard and Venrock.

Additionally, three of the top financial services firm — Allianz, Edward Jones Ventures, and Nationwide — joined this funding round as new strategic investors, as well as venture capital firm, Alumni Ventures.

{NOTE: The parent companies of these three firms have combined annual revenue of close to $300 billion.}

According to Gene Farrell, CEO of Vanilla.

“With the support of our investors, we are expanding our platform, including our pioneering AI technology, to make modernized estate planning accessible and efficient for all.”

Vanilla's Estate Advisory Platform is designed to assist its professional clients with services ranging from

• Annual Gifting to Charitable Remainder Trusts, and from
• Donor Advised Funds (DAFs) to Tax Projections and Optimization.

Additionally, Vanilla's platform enables professional to advise high-wealth individuals, married couples, and family offices on how to best navigate complicated/tricky estate management and planning situations, such as the 01 January 2026 expiration of the Estate Tax Exemption provision of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 (aka, the Trump tax cuts).

Since its 2019 founding, Vanilla has raised a total of over $84.0 million including

• $4.8 million in Seed Round funding in June 2019,
• $11.6 million in Series A Round funding in August 2020,
• $30.0 million in Series B Round funding in April 2022, and now this
• $35.0 million in an officially unnamed, yet likely Series C Round of funding, formally announced with updated investor information on 16 October 2024.

SIDEBAR: As noted in Vanilla's 22 September 2021 announcement about its Series A funding, one of the high-wealth individuals that invested in the company is Michael Jordan, as in 'Yes,' that Michael Jordan. It was his first FinTech investment, although it appears his investment likely took place through his family office/management company, Jump Management.

According to Nick Beim, Venrock Partner,

"We believe Vanilla is uniquely positioned to lead the reinvention of the estate planning industry as it rapidly scales into a significant business."

Sounds cool to me.

Good luck on your continued success, Vanilla.

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