On Thursday, RIA technology platform Flourish announced its planned acquisition of AI-powered liability-optimization fintech Sora Finance.
Terms of the deal will not be disclosed, Max Lane, CEO of Flourish, told Financial Planning.
Sora will continue to operate as a standalone offering for roughly 12 months.
During that time, Lane said Flourish would be designing a combined deposit and lending solution for advisors. He said he expects to introduce a fully integrated cash and lending solution in early 2026.
Lane said the integrated solution will focus heavily on residential real estate financing: new purchase mortgages, refinancing and home equity lines of credit (HELOCs).
“For years, advisors have given us feedback that they are looking for scaling residential lending solutions to help their clients — often who own highly valuable real estate — optimize their net worth,” he said. “We also plan to incorporate Sora’s leading liability aggregation technology to deliver both held-away cash and liability data directly to advisors to facilitate enriched and dynamic financial planning.”
Flourish, owned by Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company (MassMutual), supports more than $7 billion in assets under custody and is used by more than 900 wealth management firms representing more than $1.6 trillion in assets under management.
What the acquisition means
Lane said the deal came together “relatively quickly,” starting with a conversation at the Future Proof Festival in September 2024 that was brokered by a mutual connection, Peter Nolan, senior vice president at Pontera, “who thought there could be an opportunity for both firms to work together.”
“We had a conversation on the beach in California, and a few months later, here we are,” he said. “We had been aware of each other previously, as our offerings are complementary. Then, in conversation, we found we shared a similar vision about wealth management’s evolution toward more comprehensive services — or, what I call ‘Wealth 3.0’ — and how independent advisors need integrated banking and lending solutions to compete with wirehouses. This alignment in mission and industry perspective helped accelerate our discussions from casual conversations at an industry event to a completed deal within just a few months.”
READ MORE: Obsessing over data to delight RIA clients: Flourish CEO Max Lane on lessons learned
Lane said the combination of Sora and Flourish will give advisors the ability to actively manage both sides of the balance sheet: assets and liabilities.
“In this era, RIAs are winning by offering services that compete with traditional banking products, like savings and lending,” he said.
READ MORE: Flourish CEO Max Lane feels the stage is set for the cash conversation
These businesses provide natural hedges for one another, said Lane. He said his firm had seen “unbelievable growth” in the Flourish Cash offering as the country moved out of the zero interest rate policy (ZIRP) era to combat inflation.
“While we don’t currently foresee a return to the ZIRP era, we know rates will come down at some point, which should unlock a wave of refinance and home-purchasing opportunities for clients,” he said. “We wanted to be sure advisors were armed with the tools to serve their clients with a great lending solution when that happens. The fact that we can further help advisors and clients while simultaneously making our business more robust makes this a win-win-win.”
Lane said wirehouses and private banks are using banking services as a wedge to attract wealthy clients, creating an “open flank” for RIAs who couldn’t previously offer comparable services.
“The Flourish-Sora combination closes this gap and allows RIAs to simultaneously grow and retain assets,” he said.
What advisors are saying about Flourish and Sora Finance
Ian Weiner, owner and lead planner at Bespoke Wealth Solutions in Bentonville, Arkansas, said he has worked with Sora for nearly two years and has a “great experience with them.”
“Liability management is a critical component of financial planning, and Sora has made it easy for clients to handle complex or unique financing needs through their platform,” he said. “I’ve developed relationships with best-in-class lenders for mortgages and business financing who have provided products for my entrepreneur and small- and medium-sized business clients that others couldn’t finance due to rigid lending platforms. Their customer service for our team has been top-notch as well.”
Twin brothers Vishal and Tushar Kumar co-founded Twin Peaks Wealth Advisors in San Francisco. Tushar Kumar said their firm has used both Sora and Flourish and has had good experiences with both.
“We worked closely with the founders of Sora and helped clients find competitive lending solutions they didn’t know were available,” said Vishal Kumar.
Tushar Kumar said what he likes about Sora is that it makes it easy for him to provide guidance to his clients on their overall debt profile.
“It also allows me to identify debt optimization ideas and understand their cash flow,” he said. “Debt is a core component of almost everyone’s financial plan. Additionally, Sora helps me consolidate the number of vendors my clients have to work with. If my clients need a loan or a refinance, I can simply introduce them to the Sora team and pass the baton to them to get a transaction done for my clients.”
Tushar Kumar said Flourish has “been a seamless way to give my clients access to an easy-to-use high yield savings account that is integrated with my clients’ advisory platform.”
“Being able to send my clients a signup link reduces friction for them and makes it easy for them to earn more interest on their deposits,” he said.
John Bell, owner and lead financial planner of Free State Financial Planning in Highland, Maryland, said he has used Flourish for the past year for both his own and client accounts. He said he likes the platform as it pays a good interest rate and is easy to set up and use for both the advisor and client.
“It gives an advisor like me — advice only, with no money management — a way to both keep track of client cash assets — if they want to share that info with me — as well as being able to help get them a better interest rate if they are over the FDIC insurance limit,” he said.
Bell said the main advantage that Flourish has over other high-yield savings accounts is that it offers FDIC insurance up to $6 million for an individual or up to $12 million for a joint account. He said he also likes that Flourish has no minimum, as a client can experiment with it with no risk.
“The service costs nothing for the advisor nor client; Flourish makes money off the cash spread,” he said. “So, the yield could be a little higher than 4% if Flourish didn’t take the spread, but is it worth it to chase yields and FDIC maximums around with multiple banks? I don’t think so.”
Bell said he had explored using competitor MaxMyInterest but didn’t like the associated client fee, especially with smaller accounts, which effectively reduces the overall yield.
“I did like one feature, which I hope Flourish will add, which monitors your cash account at your regular bank and makes sure it is topped off at the end of every month. For instance, if you always wanted $50,000 in your checking account it would make the transfer automatically.”
