The lang cat has described the “breadth” of tech being developed in the advice market as “tremendous” as it identifies future propositions to watch out for.
The lang cat has released the shortlist of five firms that’ll take part in the AdviceTech Catwalk event.
Now in its third year, the Dragons’ Den style event is taking place on 24 June at CodeNode in London.
The competition is billed as an opportunity for early-stage advice, wealth and fintech propositions to display the wares they believe will help shape the advice sector in the future.
The lang cat has highlighted the range of solutions on offer which include practical AI applications that “go beyond the usual use cases” and other tech that aims to help advisers tackle “a range of issues”.
This year’s AdviceTech Catwalk finalists are:
- Afternoon – Provides an operating model for modern advice firms, that attempts to use clean, connected data across the whole process from meeting capture, through to suitability reports.
- Eddie from Jigsaw Tree – AI agent for income reconciliation, potentially cutting the time it takes to process a labour-intensive with firms said to save 10-15 hours a month.
- Life After Me – Digital legacy and estate planning platform that aims to provide advisers with a place to organise vital documents, passwords, wills, funeral plans and personal memories in one secure digital vault.
- Obsidian – AI-powered practice management platform combining an AI note-taker that drafts meeting summaries, a suitability report filler, CRM and portfolio aggregator.
- Protectix – AI protection planning assistant designed to assist in the research and analysis process for protection planning, enabling advisers to deliver quality protection advice in a fraction of the time.
The finalists will have a strict five minutes to demonstrate their propositions to a room full of advice professionals and interested industry representatives, then will face questions from both the audience and the lang cat’s selected panel of industry expert High Inquisitors. The audience will then vote for their Best in Show.
This year’s High Inquisitors include Felicia Meyerowitz Singh, NED and co-founder of Engage Smarter AI, along with FNZ managing director James Dunne and ZeroKey co-founder and CEO Joseph Williams (the inaugural Catwalk winner in 2024).
More information about Catwalk can be found here. Tickets are available here.
Mark Polson, CEO and founder of the lang cat, said: “It has been another strong year for Catwalk applications and I am seriously impressed with the final five.
“A good way to ascertain where an industry is going is to follow the tech.
“However, it can be tempting to focus too much on trends and big players; sometimes looking at the early-stage propositions can tell its own story.
“This is the thinking behind Catwalk and the shortlist proves there’s a tremendous amount of breadth in the tech being developed for the adviser space.
“Naturally, AI is a feature, but this list highlights the development is going beyond the usual use cases and looking to deliver a wide range of solutions that help advisers run their businesses more efficiently.
“And there are still other non-AI startups that are seeking to address a range of issues advisers face day to day.
“I look forward to seeing them strut their stuff and I am sure the day will give a good indication to where the advice industry is headed.”
