- PlannerPal has raised $6 million, led by Mercia Ventures, for its AI platform for UK advisers.
- It says more than 250 UK advice firms use it, including 20% of the top 20 wealth managers.
- Peers Nevis, Zocks, Saturn, and Marloo have raised rounds of $10 million to $45 million.
AI tools that write up adviser meetings are now easy to find in UK financial advice. PlannerPal wants to sell what comes after the meeting note.
The UK startup has raised $6 million in a round led by Mercia Ventures. Existing investor Ada Ventures, a London-based early-stage firm that led PlannerPal’s pre-seed round in February 2024, also took part, alongside strategic fintech investors and angels.
PlannerPal says more than 250 UK advice firms use its platform, including Canaccord Wealth, ValidPath, and Amber River. Those firms are responsible for around £150 billion of client assets, and the company says 20% of the UK’s top 20 wealth managers are among its customers, which works out to four firms.
From meeting notes to client data
PlannerPal started by taking admin off advisers: capturing client meetings, producing documents, and updating the systems they use every day. It now connects client conversations, documents, and CRM data so firms can build better client records and use them across the business. The company says advisers stay in control of every change and that data security is not compromised.
“Financial advice firms are sitting on an extraordinary amount of valuable client information, but much of it is fragmented across conversations, documents and different systems. The first opportunity for AI was obvious: remove the manual work of capturing it. The bigger opportunity is making the client data firms already hold work better,” said Mark Whitcrof, PlannerPal’s CEO and co-founder.
Whitcroft previously co-founded Hazel, a platform offering property and financial guidance for older adults, and worked at fintech venture firm Illuminate Financial.
Its approach is to sit inside the systems advisers already use. PlannerPal is built into Iress Xplan, where advisers can launch it through single sign-on, and it integrates with Intelliflo, Curo, Plannr, Microsoft Teams, Zoom, and SharePoint. The company says it is the only AI partner chosen for the Iress Partnership. Iress expanded the tie-up in July 2026, and PlannerPal’s Xplan CRM Updater covers 400 data fields in the standard Xplan fact find, according to Financial Reporter.
“We don’t believe the answer is another disconnected AI tool sitting outside the core systems of the business. A firm’s AI and client data strategy need to work together,” added Whitcroft.
Mortgages are the next test
PlannerPal has moved beyond wealth management into the UK mortgage market. Its new client, Charles Cameron, is described by the company as one of the UK’s largest independent mortgage brokers. PlannerPal says mortgage firms face the same problems as wealth firms: client information spread across conversations, documents, and systems, and growing pressure to show consistency and suitability at scale. It also claims its platform changes the economics of financial advice by letting advisers serve significantly more clients with a more personalised and proactive service.
Others are eyeing the same market. When it raised its pre-seed round, Marloo said the money would strengthen support for wealth management, planning, insurance, and mortgage firms, according to Fintech News Singapore. In the US, Valon raised $150 million at a $2.3 billion valuation on October 6 to bring AI agents to the mortgage market.
PlannerPal will use the new money to expand its engineering and product teams, support customer rollouts, and develop its client intelligence features.
A crowded field with bigger rounds
The market is large, and many firms are still deciding on AI. The FCA’s 2025 survey of advice firms, published in April 2026, drew responses from more than 4,100 firms. They advise on around £1 trillion of assets for more than 4.1 million retail clients.
The regulator found that 95% of large firms, defined as those with 50 or more advisers, use AI in the advice process or are considering it. Only 52% of large firms said they will use it there, against 38% of medium-sized firms and 14% of small firms.
PlannerPal’s $6 million is smaller than the latest round at each of its peers. Nevis, founded by three former Revolut executives and aimed at US registered investment advisers, raised a $35 million Series A from Sequoia Capital, ICONIQ, and Ribbit Capital in December 2025. San Francisco-based Zocks raised a $45 million Series B co-led by Lightspeed Venture Partners and QED Investors in January 2026, and says more than 5,000 firms use it.
London’s Saturn, which Tech Funding News covered in October 2025, raised a $15 million Series A led by Singular and says it serves more than 600 advisory firms. London-based Marloo raised a $10 million seed round led by Blackbird Ventures in April 2026, after a $2.7 million pre-seed round in September 2025.
Mercia’s view is that the buyers are maturing. Adam Lovell, investment director at Mercia Ventures, said: “Advice firms have spent the last two years experimenting with AI. Those now choosing a long-term AI partner want an experienced and trusted team, backed by technology that works with their existing systems and client data, not another standalone tool.”
The test for PlannerPal is whether client intelligence becomes something firms pay for, or the next feature every note-taking tool ships. Zocks says it will expand beyond administrative work, and Marloo says it is moving beyond the note taker. PlannerPal’s answer is that the winner will be the product already wired into the adviser’s core systems. It has to prove that with a round a fraction of the size of Zocks’.
