Raiz Invest scales automated investing platform for new generation
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Murray Region
While most traditional asset management fund managers spend their time hunting high net worth whales in the deep blue of the financial sector, ASX-listed micro-investment giant Raiz Invest is busy building a hugely lucrative empire on an entirely different premise.
The company is sweeping up leftover coins from the kitchen counter and turning everyday digital pocket money into a multibillion-dollar juggernaut. If there is still anyone in the market who disdains this summative fintech model, a spectacular financial turnaround and a high-profile leadership transition will likely dispel those doubts once and for all.
With its financial foundations securely placed in profitable territory, Raiz’s board decided it was time to pass the baton to a corporate heavyweight who could take the business to even greater heights.
Fintech and digital platform heavyweight Craig Keary officially took over as CEO on June 1, replacing outgoing boss Brendan Malone following a successful six-year tenure that guided the company to critical early growth and an ASX listing.
Keary brings a significant wealth management background to the corporate landscape, including high-profile executive roles at Tier 1 blue-chip institutions Westpac, HSBC and AMP Capital. Notably, he served as chief executive officer of online broker Selfwealth, where he guided the platform through its high-risk acquisition by international digital wealth and micro-investing player Syfe.
Keary says his mission is to streamline internal operations and bring to market advanced product models guided by his personal corporate philosophy that long-term wealth accumulation should be a quiet, automated routine running smoothly in the background of daily life.
The new hire firmly believes that turning investing into an automatic micro-habit is as much about prosperity as it is about wealth creation. Keary advocates removing emotions from the process to help investors avoid the panic-driven decisions that are often the most costly when markets become unstable.
It’s a systematic approach that he sees as a powerful tool for practical financial literacy, and focuses mainly on getting kids in the game early by teaching them how to save, invest and respect money through simple digital habits. The company’s push for younger customers appears to be paying dividends, with Kids portfolios growing 26.4% year-on-year.
The underlying engine driving this habit is a passive, on-demand financial assistant delivered via a nifty mobile app. By connecting directly to the user’s debit card, the platform rounds up everyday purchases, such as morning shopping or grocery shopping, to the nearest dollar and transfers the change directly into a portfolio of exchange-traded funds.
This approach is reinforced through systematic dollar-cost averaging, in which money is invested at regular intervals regardless of whether markets are up or down. By automatically buying more shares when prices are low and fewer shares when they are high, the strategy steadily smoothes out the average purchase price over time and helps remove emotion from the investing process.
The macro scale of this micro habit already seems large; active customers reached 347,354 users, and the company’s funds under management collectively increased to $2.04 billion.
What makes this momentum particularly impressive is the wider economic environment, where, amid persistent cost-of-living crises and cooling retail investor sentiment, everyday Australians appear to be placing more emphasis than ever on these automatic micro-investments to grow their wealth.
More importantly, the determination of Raiz users seems to have responded as well
Former tech industry critics who spent years wondering when the microinvestment model would actually turn a profit.
A prime example of this is the restructuring of the platform’s fee plan, which takes effect in August 2025, adding an extra $1 to the monthly maintenance fees of the Regular and Plus plans. Yet far from deterring users, the fee adjustment has highlighted the strength of the platform.
Average revenue per user increased an impressive 14.1 percent to $86.61; This proves that customers are more than willing to pay for a service that automates their financial discipline in a frictionless way.
For Raiz, that cash-printing moment came with resounding clarity and set a strong tone for the upcoming full-year results.
Statutory net profit after tax for the six months to December 2025 was $3.52 million, driven by a deferred tax asset of $2.68 million recorded after management determined that past tax losses could be recovered. Even excluding the one-time accounting gain, the company still made a solid underlying profit of $836,000; This was a dramatic reversal from the $1.1 million loss recorded in the previous corresponding period.
This resulted in a 23.9 percent revenue increase to $14.4 million and an explosive 270 percent increase in underlying EBITDA to $2.6 million. Operating cash flow also rose 51.4 percent to $2.36 million, leaving the company with a strong balance sheet, including $14.6 million in cash to fund its next chapter of expansion.
There appears to be a growing pool of sophisticated retail users who want more from basic index funds driving the platform’s growth, and Raiz provides exactly that through a tiered portfolio structure.
This group is led by the Plus plan, which is highly customizable and allows users to mix and match more than 155 ASX-listed stocks and ETFs, as well as Bitcoin and real estate. The adoption of the product has already seen a significant 22.4 percent increase year-on-year.
For those seeking alternative assets, the company’s Sapphire and Property portfolios provide direct, partial weighting of up to five percent in Bitcoin and 30 percent in the institutional-grade Raiz Property fund. Meanwhile, the recently launched Lite plan serves as an ultra-low-cost entry point specifically designed for price-sensitive Gen Z savers, with the latest figures showing users up 86 percent quarter-over-quarter.
To keep this product engine running, the company is preparing for a comprehensive technology refresh built on an upgraded data backbone that will introduce advanced features like shared couple accounts, family investment goals, and social gifting.
Other key initiatives planned to launch this year include users’ direct access to US-listed stocks and ASX trading, as well as instant payments and faster real-time trading capabilities.
By embedding “viral loops” like referral programs directly into the app’s user interface, Raiz aims to reduce customer acquisition costs while maximizing long-term customer retention.
With its full-year EBITDA forecast pegged in a solid range of $4.5 million to $5.5 million, a well-capitalized balance sheet and proven operator Keary now driving the day-to-day business, Raiz Invest has become more than just a smart app for tech-savvy millennials.
Instead, the company appears to have evolved into an enterprise-level fintech powerhouse that has cracked the rules on using financial discipline to create long-term wealth and turning Australia’s collective spare change into a highly profitable business.
Is your ASX-listed company doing something interesting? Contact: mattbirney@bullsnbears.com.au
