Behind GeoWealth’s Latest $38M Funding Round

Not everyone has the dashing good looks to be a model. Would you settle for a model portfolio?

GeoWealth, a leading turnkey asset management platform, secured $38 million in Series C funding this week led by Apollo, with the two firms planning to offer RIAs customizable public-private model portfolios. The latest round of funding also included an $18 million growth investment from last year led by BlackRock, and comes as advisors are increasingly interested in using private market allocations in model portfolios — especially for mass affluent clients, who historically haven’t had access to alternatives.

The Chicago-based company, which currently works with about 200 RIAs and manages $35 billion in client assets, will use the funding for product development and new hires while also putting some toward its recently completed acquisition of the TAMP assets from Freedom Advisors. “Advisors are seeking turnkey access to private markets,” GeoWealth CEO Colin Falls said in a statement.

Strike a Pose

Model portfolios were designed to take some of the thinking out of asset allocation, offering clients pre-built investing strategies based on their goals and risk levels. “Clients often feel overwhelmed by the sheer multitude of investment options,” said Sam Mockford, a CFP at Citrine Capital. “When it comes time to rebalance, if I did not have a recipe to follow, I could fall prey to recency bias, herd mentality, etc., and harm my clients in the long-term.”

Model portfolios’ popularity among advisors is showing no signs of slowing. Assets in third-party model portfolios — as in strategies that aren’t made in-house by an RIA — totaled more than $645 billion at the end of March 2025, a 62% increase from Morningstar’s last survey of the space in June 2023. The demand for private asset inclusions in model portfolios and similar strategies is also growing:

• Just last month, SMArtX Advisory Solutions said it had begun integrating semi-liquid alternative investments, including interval and tender offer funds last year. 
• Goldman Sachs partnered with GeoWealth and iCapital in March to bring alternatives to RIAs’ own model portfolios or through ones offered by Goldman.
• Fidelity recently brought its custom models with private assets to both Vestmark and Envestnet platforms.

“Investors are increasingly looking beyond public markets for greater diversification and differentiated returns,” Stephanie Drescher, chief client and product development officer at Apollo, said in a statement.