After RIA pilot test soars, Vanguard Group buys Just Invest, to counter disruption bids by rivals in the direct indexing game

The Malvern, Pa., manager of $7.9 trillion lifted Just Invest to quick $1 billion of AUM -- much of it in accelerating 2021 -- then buys the Oakland, Calif., direct indexing startup

Author Brooke Southall July 13, 2021 at 5:27 PM

2 Comments

Tim Buckley: “Wise investments in technology are an important equalizer, enabling us to democratize valuable investment capabilities and products.

Technology

Tim Buckley

The Vanguard Group

Just Invest

Brian Murphy

July 13, 2021 — 9:18 PM

Congratulations to Jonathan, Vijay, Sherwood, Rosa and the rest of the team! Great job so far, and looking forward to great thing with Vanguard's DI solutions. Couldn't happen to a nicer team.

Iraklis Kourtidis

July 13, 2021 — 11:57 PM

"The question I’ve been asked is why Vanguard has to buy this technology at all. They are the kings of indexing. They know how to build capitalization-weighted portfolios of hundreds of stocks, deal with cash flows and keep things closely tied to their benchmarks." I think there main distinction is between having thousands of accounts vs. a pooled investment vehicle, which is kind of like a single account. Many accounts that trade independently will all be in different states, so it's too much work to have a human verify things look correct. For DI, you need different technology that can scale. Separately, I agree with Brian above on "couldn't happen to a nicer team."

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