Addepar

After 10 years of rapid growth and almost $2 trillion under management, Addepar’s original strategy and visual brand no longer reflected the direction of the business or its vision for the future. As such, internal and external audiences struggled to understand what Addepar stood for and why they should care. Combo's role was to reconnect Addepar’s brand to its business and employees through a rejuvenated and useful brand design system, positioning and new employee value proposition revolving around how Addepar can maximize the impact of the world’s capital.

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Humanizing Wealth Management

An Alternative Approach to Managing Finances

Wealth management operations had largely functioned as a patchwork of analog and outdated tools. To solve for this, Addepar utilized groundbreaking technology to develop a reporting tool that superseded the limited functionality of traditional financial recordkeeping. Financial advisors now had a streamlined way to give better reporting to their clients, allowing them to understand and adapt to rapidly changing marketplaces, including the traditionally hard to track “alternative investments” ©. After eight years, Addepar was successfully managing $1.5 trillion in assets. Along with integrated workflows and high-quality data, the company was expanding real-time analysis with predictive analytics.

© Alternative investments have doubled as a share of global asset markets since 2003. It has moved from 6% or $4.8 trillion of the global investment universe in 2003 to over $13.4 trillion, or 12% of the global investment universe in 2018. By 2025, it is expected to grow to between 18% and 24% of the global investable universe.

Requiring an Enterprise Level Identity

Addpar’s technology had become integral to advisors’ ability to quickly give clients a clear picture of their portfolio, taking into account complex ownership structures, multiple asset classes, alternative investments and multicurrency scenarios. The company had also grown from serving primarily small family offices to banks and other larger financial enterprises. But the Addepar brand didn’t reflect this expanded scale of operations, clientele and product innovation. That’s where Combo came in.

There's just a lot, much bigger and more complex product footprint than people realize.
Joe Lonsdale, Addepar Founder

Strategic Shifts to Humanize Financial Relationships

Client research and case study interviews conducted by Combo strategists illuminated the key insight that building deeper relationships between advisors and their clients was key to meeting rising expectations. As the strategy team helped Addepar reorient itself as a purpose-driven brand, this strategic anchor brought clarity to internal and external messaging, guided the brand framework and helped develop goal-oriented brand behaviors into workable project roadmaps.

If you can create ways for people to more easily understand how to take the right risks, how to understand how to engage with the alternative investment world, that's a positive thing.
Joe Lonsdale, Addepar Founder

Designed to Express a New Brand Personality

Combo designers then created a visual identity system that aligned with the newly defined traits of the brand: approachable and idealistic, while also knowledgeable in a way that felt human. Design deliverables included a comprehensive style guide and website assets, all nodding back to the company’s alternative approach to wealth and relationship building.

Addepar Valued at $2.17 Billion as Investors Bet on Wealth-Management Tech.
The Wall Street Journal

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