The co-founders of Riskalyze plan to launch two new products, the Autopilot Partner Store and Risk Number Models, that will turn their risk alignment software business into a distribution platform, for asset managers, reaching 19,000 advisors.

Mike McDaniel Riskalyze Co-founder and CIO

The Autopilot Partner Store makes models, strategies, and research from asset managers and others available to its advisors. The product currently has eleven partners on board, and Mike McDaniel, co-founder and CIO at Riskalyze, plans to bring on more.

Explaining the team's due diligence process, McDaniel tells MFWire, "We're following advisor demand and/or best of breed asset managers."

McDaniel and his team selected partners by reaching out to asset managers whose products were most popular with Riskalyze advisors and then filling coverage gaps with best of breed managers in niche areas.

Currently, the Autopilot Partner Store is available at an enterprise level to broker-dealers, and the team plans to make it available to its existing advisor base this May.

The research, model strategist, and asset management partners currently include: AlphaDroid, Cambria, CLS Investments, First Trust, Longboard Asset Management, Morningstar Managed Portfolios, New York Life Mainstay Investments, SEI Investments, Stadion Money Management, State Street Global Advisors, and Swan Global Investments. (Despite initial reports to the contrary, American Funds is not part of the platform.)

Risk Number Models, another product that the firm expects to launch in May, will make a series of eight model strategies available to advisors. A spokesperson declined to confirm the asset managers that will power the models, but says that they may include some of the same partners.

The Autopilot Partner Store allows advisors to employ model portfolio strategies, and the Autopilot mechanism will clear through from decision to actually placing the trades. This will make it easier than ever for advisors to execute trades on model portfolio strategies.

"This is one of the biggest splashes in our industry since the mutual fund," McDaniel tells MFWire.

The Risk Number Models will be the first solution that will monitor and rebalance a portfolio based on an investor's risk number. It will provide advisors with a set of model portfolios that are passive or low tracking error models and another set that will include publicly-traded alts.

McDaniel co-founded Riskalyze in 2011 with Aaron Klein and Matt Pistone, who now serve as the company's CEO and CTO, respectively. The company started as a risk alignment software—it provides advisors with a tool that boils down a client's risk to a quantifiable number.  

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