ClearGlass Analytics closes £2.6 million funding round

The Fintech startup is targeting the £1.5 trillion mature DB pension schemes market and claims to now work with over 500 DB pension funds

Fintech startup ClearGlass Analytics has closed a £2.6 million funding round for its platform, which aims to create greater transparency on fees in the long-term savings market, such as pensions and the wider asset management market.

The £2.6 million seed round includes European VC Lakestar and Outward VC, the venture arm of Investec, and several angels from both the asset management and pension fund sectors. These include Ruston Smith, a pension trustee; Richard Butcher, chair of the PLSA (U.K. pension trade body); Chris Wilcox, former Global Head of JP Morgan Asset Management; and Rob O’Rahilly, Sikander Ilyas and Alex Large, also former JP Morgan employees.

ClearGlass is targeting the £1.5 trillion mature Defined Benefit (DB) pension schemes market and claims to now work with over 500 DB pension funds. It will use the funding to expand into the U.K. Defined Contribution (DC) pension market, and consolidate its early footprint in Europe and Africa.

ClearGlass acts as a data interface between asset managers and their clients. Pension funds then use the platform to see all of their investment costs in one place, thus getting more data than usual from more asset managers and other suppliers. This helps the funds see the “true cost” of what they are paying for the management of their investments. ClearGlass claims to be able to uncover the kinds of costs of asset management that can be more than double those expected, in some instances.

The company was founded by Dr. Christopher Sier, a World Bank and FCA expert who previously developed the cost transparency standard at the request of the FCA, and co-founders Ritesh Singhania and Kunal Varma.

Sier, founder and CEO, said: Finding your costs are so much larger is shocking, but also something to be celebrated. These incremental costs were always there, they just weren’t exposed, and now you can identify those and bring about change. You can’t manage what you don’t measure.