Kunai Partners With Allio To Create An Investing App Built for Everyone
Background
Allio is an investment app designed to simplify investing by providing expert strategies to the general public. Allio is a seed-funded fintech startup established in 2020. Their goal is to equip everyone with financial wellness by providing expert money management tailored to their values, risk profile, and savings goals. To that end, they planned to create the first-ever micro-savings tool that empowered anyone who used it to build wealth.
The Challenge
Many Americans have less than $1000 in savings and consider the idea of investing their money to be too risky.
Despite a strong desire to build wealth, lack of knowledge and expertise leads many Americans to find investing to be an intimidating and overwhelming venture.
"Inflation and other economic headwinds have made saving money and building wealth very challenging for most Americans. Allio believes everyone has a right to a viable future with money management tailored to their values, risk profile, and savings goals,” said a spokesperson for Allio.
In order to help Americans build financial stability and wellness through investing, Allio would have to simplify the barrier to entry and reduce customer’s perceived risk.
Disheartening Knowledge Barrier
Lack of knowledge is a significant contributor to why Americans don’t invest. When many people find personal finance to be difficult, it may seem impossible to discern reliable financial advice from the rest of the loud voices yelling on the internet and TV.
This perceived difficulty stemming from a lack of knowledge also results in the individual expressing a lack of belief in their ability to attain financial wellness as well as considerable fear for the uncertainty of investments.
However, customers need to know that financial wellness can be attained, and that the knowledge barrier is not as high as it would seem.
Perceived Income Barrier
Alongside lack of knowledge, many Americans hold the misconception that investing is only “worth it” with a high principal amount.
So Allio would also have to overcome this objection alongside the knowledge misconception.
Finding the Right Devs
Developing Allio would require deep experience in the financial industry. Allio wanted to provide a way for customers to invest without requiring any expertise and with a low buy-in.
The right development team would need to possess a market-tested expertise in compliance standards including, but not limited to, SEC, FINRA, FDIC, CFTC, AML, KYC, and PCI DSS regulations.
Additionally, the development team should possess a deep understanding of the problems that Allio was trying to solve. Given the target demographic’s sensitivity to risk, the dev team would have to walk the fine line between presenting the platform as a trustworthy resource while also disarming customer’s inclinations toward suspicion.
Lastly, given the complexity of moving parts that would have to come together to create Allio– such as integrations with Plaid, Alpaca, AWS, and Stripe as well as concurrent development across iOS and Android– the development team would have to be highly flexible, able to adapt to sudden changes, coordinate and execute tight project management, and develop round short timetables without compromising quality.
The Solution
At the core of any financial app lies some sort of withdrawal and deposit functionality. For many fintechs, Plaid remains the golden standard for fast and easy integration with over 11,000 financial institutions.
Once Allio had decided that Plaid could provide all the functionality they needed, Allio sought out a development partner that could bring their vision together.
Being one of Plaid’s most recommended software consultancies, Allio partnered with Kunai to build their all-in-one saving and investing app.
“When we met with Allio, we were immediately onboard. Building lasting wealth feels like a rich man’s game, but it doesn’t have to be. This was an issue that we saw lived out in our loved ones, and we wanted to help Allio to achieve their goal and be part of the solution,” said Sandeep Sood, CEO
Allio– Making Wealth Accessible at Kunai.
With tremendous experience in building fintech apps, vast knowledge of industry-defining integrations, compliance expertise, and a well-rounded development team– Kunai was the perfect tool for this task.
The Process
Allio– Making Wealth Accessible
Kunai built out the Allio app with multiple advanced features addressing the most pressing objections Allio’s target demographic held.
With their expertise on Plaid and financial integrations, Kunai’s turnaround time on development was fast without compromising on quality or compliance. With masterful project management keeping tabs on and manipulating all the strands of the project, Kunai successfully developed the Allio app as designed and envisioned by the team at Allio.
“It really isn’t everyday I get to wake up and manage a product that could change so many lives for the better. Everything Allio did was driven by their desire to do good by their customers, and we really wanted to express that in even the smallest little thing. People deserve to get more out of their money, especially during uncertain economic conditions. I have enjoyed working with the Allio team and share their spirit of helping others in need,” said Sandeep Sood, CEO at Kunai.
The Result
Free-To-Use App: Allio
The Allio app makes it easier for individuals to invest their money. With expert-level investment strategies and automated portfolios, users can invest like a pro without any prior experience or any account minimums. It’s available for everyone and only requires $1 a month to start.
Allio’s feature set takes the guesswork out of investing, allowing users to grow their money with minimal effort. This approach helps minimize risk and uncertainty for the customer, giving them more confidence in growing their wealth through investments.
Feature: Automated Portfolios
Allio’s automated portfolios are powered by a team of hedge fund veterans who constantly monitor trends and conditions to ensure only the best investments. Allio’s automated portfolios eliminate the need for prior expertise and raise users’ confidence in their investments. Allio’s team of hedge fund veterans automatically identify and recommend the right investments for you.
They also give users the option to diversify beyond traditional investments. Users can choose to opt into real estate, emerging markets, crypto, and gold.
Allio focuses on full-scale optimization, with their global macro portfolios designed to meet the complex, inflationary market conditions. As a result, users can still make confident investments during times of uncertainty.
Feature: Invest In Your Values
In addition to providing expert-level investment strategies, Allio also allows users to invest in causes that they are passionate about through values-based investing baskets.
These baskets let users specify specific causes they’d like to support. Such options include Clean Energy, Social Justice & Equity, Made in America, Animal Welfare, and Cancer Research, just to name a few.
Featureset: Quality of Life
Allio provides users with a holistic account view to help them easily track net worth over time with a personal balance sheet. This helps users set financial goals according to their needs that Allio can then help them reach through automations.
Allio also provides advanced automatic tax harvesting tailored to the user’s economic situation. Tax harvesting can help save more on underperforming investments.
An Evolving Collaboration
This is just the beginning for Allio. Since launch, Kunai has helped structure and staff Allio’s in-house development team. Together, both Kunai and Allio collaborate on continued design support, maintenance, and project management.
The platform is always looking to build out new features and expand on current toolsets. Kunai plans to introduce more varied investments and tools users can use to assist them on their journey to financial wellness, then financial wealth.