Jul 25, 2025, 9:05 AM ETInterview, Fireside Chat

How Vise Became a Unicorn With Just 40 Employees

The total U.S. wealth market stands at $83 trillion in assets, with the enterprise RIA (Registered Investment Advisor) segment currently valued at $2 trillion.
The enterprise RIA market is projected to grow from $2 trillion to $10 trillion in assets over the next five to seven years.
Vize aims to become the world's largest asset manager, entirely powered by a technology platform rather than traditional human-led product distribution.
Vize recently surpassed $15 billion in client platform assets, representing a 1,500% year-over-year growth rate.
This growth was achieved with a lean team of 41 people, the smallest headcount in the company's history.
The platform has generated over $63 million in tax savings for clients and saved more than 200,000 hours of work for 100 firms across 30,000 accounts.
Vize transitioned its strategy from targeting small "mom-and-pop" RIAs to focusing on large, PE-backed enterprise RIAs that have consolidated trillions in assets.

Founding CEO Samir Khandwala started building the software at age 16 and raised seed funding at age 18, achieving a valuation of $4 million at the time.
The company scaled from seed to unicorn status in approximately 18 months, coinciding with a favorable market cycle.
Vize previously grew to roughly 150 employees but recently executed a significant downsizing to 41 people to eliminate organizational bloat and improve efficiency.
The company pivoted away from hiring senior executives with large-org pedigrees, instead focusing on "high-agency" individuals who can operate with high ownership.
The restructuring involved removing senior hires whose primary incentive was to expand team size rather than optimize business outcomes.
Vize emphasizes a "barrel and ammunition" hiring philosophy, identifying a few key high-performers and giving them the resources to drive growth.
The company admits to raising too much capital during a bull market, which led to unnecessary spending and a culture difficult to maintain remotely during the pandemic.

Vize functions as a central operating system for portfolio management, ingesting client inputs (age, net worth, goals, risk tolerance, tax preferences, concentrated stock positions).
The platform constructs personalized portfolios of individual stocks, bonds, and alternative assets that are uniquely tailored to each client within an enterprise model framework.
A core differentiator is "daily tax loss harvesting," where algorithms analyze thousands of accounts daily to offset losses with gains, a service traditionally reserved for accounts over $1 million.
The system can manage "concentrated position" risks by rebalancing portfolios (e.g., reducing tech exposure for an employee holding company stock) to protect against sector-specific correlation risks.
Vize facilitates complex tax-efficient strategies for ultra-high-net-worth individuals, such as collaring stock positions and taking loans against shares to fund liquidity needs without triggering taxable events.
The platform integrates both public and private market assets to build a "total portfolio solution" that mimics a custom index across the entire market spectrum.
Unlike competitors that only offer "cruise control" level personalization, Vize aims to provide "full self-driving" level nuance by managing individual client needs within a broader strategy.

A major market trend is the merger of private and public markets, driven by the fact that over 80% of retail wealth is still managed in traditional vehicles, leaving less than 2% in alternatives.
Vize identifies a massive opportunity to democratize access to alternative assets (venture, private equity, real estate) for affluent retail investors, who currently lack entry to these markets.
Venture capital managers face a "liquidity crunch" as traditional LPs (pension funds, endowments) are over-allocated and cannot access new capital, shifting focus to the retail sector.
The secondary market for private assets is currently illiquid and lacks standardized pricing mechanisms, described by the founder as "more art than science."
Global wealth is shifting away from traditional hubs like London and Hong Kong toward Dubai and Singapore due to tax optimization and geopolitical capital safety concerns.
Vize anticipates international expansion in the coming years, targeting markets like India and Southeast Asia where cash-based economies can skip legacy financial infrastructure for direct digital wealth management.
Family offices are increasingly acting as RIAs, with many outsourcing core investment management to specialized firms while maintaining in-house teams only at the highest scales.

Samir Khandwala predicts a 60% chance of a recession occurring in late 2023 or early 2024.
He anticipates Elon Musk remaining the world's wealthiest person, potentially due to a new valuation round for SpaceX.
Khandwala predicts breakthroughs in quantum computing will materialize within the year.
He forecasts that the "Dogecoin" phenomenon will face significant hurdles, with the administration and Silicon Valley realizing the complexity of the political landscape.
Looking ahead, the company plans to continue compounding its position in the multi-trillion-dollar asset management space while remaining agile against the retirement of older industry leaders.