Owner of Hong Kong robo-advisor Aqumon lands Alibaba-backed $30m

Written by Ruby Hinchliffe
26th October 2020

Magnum Research, the owner of Hong Kong-based digital wealth management platform Aqumon, has landed $30 million (HKD 233 million) in a pre-Series B round.

Aqumon offers B2C and B2B solutions

The firm, backed by Chinese ecommerce giant Alibaba, claims it’s 2020’s “largest funding deal” in Asia for any digital wealth management player.

Recent months have seen Singapore-based robo-advisors StashAway and Syfe land lesser funding rounds than Magnum. StashAway landed a $16 million Series C in August, and Syfe landed a $18.6 million Series A just a month later.

And in April, Vietnamese micro-invest wealth management platform Finhay raised an undisclosed seven-digit investment with major backing from Jeffrey Cruttenden, co-founder of US savings app Acorns.

Investors in Aqumon

Magnum’s latest round was led by Hong Kong-based, Zheng He Capital Management, an early investor of both IPO-seeker Lufax and insurance giant Ping An.

Eddie Law, Zheng He’s managing director, share its reason for the investment. “We are looking for a platform to provide every middle class investor a well-trusted and reliable robotic financial advisor, and I believe Aqumon is the one.”

Other investors in the wealthtech include incubator group Lenovo Capital, Alibaba’s Hong Kong-based entrepreneur fund, the family office of Wing Lung – which owns a Hong Kong-based bank that uses Aqumon, and government-backed business park Cyberport.

Alibaba, perhaps Magnum’s most notable investor to date, previously led the wealthtech’s Series A round back in 2017. The ecommerce giant has made a total of four investments in the start-up.

Growth of Aqumon

Aqumon grew out of an incubator at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology into a fully licensed financial service firm.

It has offices in Hong Kong, China and Singapore, serving both retail customers and institutional firms with wealth management solutions.

Magnum claims Aqumon’s algorithm-based investment advice, which diversifies portfolios based on asset classes, has seen significant growth during the pandemic.

It says the app has experienced more than 300% growth this year, compared to 2019.

This growth is based on app downloads, account openings, and funds transferred to Aqumon accounts.

And despite persistent market uncertainty, its SmartGlobal portfolio netted 10.01% year-to-date return on 16 October 2020.

As for its enterprise solutions, to date Magnum says it has partnered with more than 70 financial institutions. The wealth manager says these partners cover more than ten million end users.

As well as investor Wing Lung Bank, Aqumon also outsources to AIA Hong Kong, Bank of China International, Guangzhou Rural Commercial Bank, China Resources Bank, and ChinaAMC.

Magnum says the spike in digital alternatives, as well as the popularity of cloud-based solutions to reduce implementation costs, have helped Aqumon to grow in the enterprise space.