A new startup founded earlier this year is building a marketplace for high-performance model portfolios, aiming to give everyday investors access to strategies traditionally reserved for hedge funds and ultra-wealthy clients.
Plutus lets users browse curated, thematic portfolios from independent research providers, select one that fits their goals, and replicate it automatically in their own brokerage accounts.
The Seattle-area company is led by longtime engineers Shashank Chiranewala and Mitren Chinoy, who previously started and sold digital form startup Formloge earlier this year for an undisclosed sum.
Chiranewala, a former investment banker and program manager at Microsoft and Meta, said he was frustrated by the lack of access to sophisticated investment strategies without multimillion-dollar minimums.
At the same time, he noticed a growing ecosystem of independent research firms serving institutional clients but lacking the technology to bring their portfolios to the mass market.
Executing complex portfolios manually is a “Herculean software engineering effort,” said Chiranewala, the company’s CEO.
Plutus acts as an advisory marketplace between individual investors and providers such as Citrini Research. Its marketplace offers thematic investment strategies — portfolios for AI and tech, or global clean energy, for example.
Unlike passive ETFs or mutual funds, the portfolios are designed for automated rebalancing and potential tax advantages. The company takes a cut of subscription fees set by each portfolio provider.
Plutus is initially integrating with Interactive Brokers, a publicly traded online brokerage. Chiranewala said they picked the company for its global market exposure and interest rates.
The startup is generating revenue from a handful of customers, including family offices, hedge funds, and others. Its software manages more than $35 million in assets.
Plutus also recently raised $452,000 from angel investors. The company has five employees. Chinoy, the company’s CTO, was previously a senior software engineer at Snowflake and Microsoft.