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 has $32 billion in client assets under administration, 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.

Living with your parents isn’t everyone’s cup of tea.

But multigenerational living is becoming more common, and advisors need to know how to manage these types of households. According to Pew Research Center data, the share of the US population in multigenerational homes — defined as those with two generations of adults older than 25 and grandchildren younger than 25 — has more than doubled over the past 50 years. This creates a problem for “financial caregivers,” said Laura Varas, founder of the data firm Hearts & Wallets, since current advice options don’t tend to address their needs.

“This is a real opportunity for advisors,” she said, “and when it’s done well, a source of extraordinary and lasting gratitude that heirs feel to the people that help them.”

Home Again

The rise of multigenerational living coincides with the rise of financial caregiving, which could mean anything from paying a relative’s bills to acting as their power of attorney. About 36 million households are currently involved in some sort of financial caregiving, according to Hearts & Wallets. Varas said it’s a common misconception that everyone in this role is in their 50s, often called “the sandwich generation,” since many financial caregivers are actually in their teens, or even older parents looking after adult children.

Another misconception is that addressing these types of households is always about inheritance. Older generations typically don’t have a huge inheritance to pass on, Varas said, making the more mundane tasks, like managing a loved one’s medical bills or dealing with estate documents, the most important. Advisors can step in when it comes to things like giving adult children access to a parent’s bank account or spending someone’s assets as they would. According to a recent report from Hearts & Wallets:

• Nearly half of households are willing to pay for one or more professional services regarding financial caregiving, with the figure rising to 70% for households already providing caregiving.
• About 1 in 5 households find managing their loved ones’ finances “very difficult.”

Closing the Gap. Intergenerational living is more common among certain demographics, with the proportion of Black, Hispanic and Asian multigenerational households being roughly twice that of white households, according to Pew data, making the need for specific financial advice among these households more pronounced. Men are also more likely to live in multigenerational homes than women.

“There really should be services that you can pay for that will help with financial caregiving,” Varas said. “There are many households that need it.”

Just because a client lives abroad doesn’t mean they can’t be in your book.

While the bulk of American advisors’ business is conducted in the US, some are seeking opportunities overseas. Out of the roughly 15,000 independent firms based in the US, 381 advisors are registered with foreign regulatory authorities and provide services to clients in other countries, according to new data from SmartAsset. While foreign-registered RIAs make up just 2.6% of the total population, some firms are finding potential beyond their home country’s borders.

“Taking business overseas may come with a lot of upfront regulatory investment, and so, requires an appropriate strategy to seek an appropriate return on investment,” said Jaclyn DeJohn, director of economic analysis at SmartAsset.

Yankee Doodle Dandy

Over the past year, the number of US states registered with foreign regulators has remained relatively flat, with some slight redistributions out of some states and into others, the data found. Meanwhile, nearly 800 foreign-based RIAs are registered with the SEC.

Northeast states had the highest prevalence for foreign registration, likely due to the wealth concentration, population density and more manageable time zone considerations, DeJohn told Advisor Upside. She added that it’s important for advisors to do their diligence before trying to conduct business in multiple environments, otherwise firms may be “vulnerable to risks, including geopolitical tensions and exchange rates.” The research also found:

• New York leads the country in RIAs registered with foreign regulators, at 130 firms.
• Massachusetts and Connecticut have the largest shares of RIAs working with clients in other countries, at 5.74% and 5.64%, respectively.
• Though not mentioned in the study, DeJohn said Washington, D.C., had higher rates of foreign financial registration than any state, at nearly 10%.

World Tour. US-based RIAs oversee about $145 trillion in assets, so it’s no wonder that other countries want a piece of the American pie. The United Kingdom has 248 firms registered with the SEC, representing almost a third of all the foreign RIAs operating in the US, the data found. Canada has the second most RIAs doing business in the states at 138 firms. And Hong Kong accounts for just over 8% of foreign RIAs in the US with 66.