HELVARA
01/15
Helvara
Swiss wealth, rebuilt.
Raise CHF 18M Seed Stage Pre-seed → Seed
Founder Philipp Pünjer Contact philipp@puenjer.com
02/Thesis

Wealth management is broken intermediation.

We go direct, with a license and a model the incumbents structurally cannot copy.

Bank
EAM
Fund
Treuhänder
200–400 bps All-in cost / year
Helvara
60 bps All-in cost / year
Today
200–400 bps · 4 providers · 0 integration
Helvara
60 bps · 1 provider · full integration
Client saves
CHF 10–25k / year, every year, forever
03/The orphaned segment

800,000 Swiss households just got orphaned.

UBS pushed them down. The EAMs can't serve them. Nobody's home.

CHF 5M+
Pictet · Julius Bär · UBS Wealth Management
Bespoke private banking
CHF 200k – 2M
800,000 households · CHF 600B · Nobody The orphaned middle
— this row is empty —
< CHF 200k
Selma · True Wealth · DIY
Robo ETF portfolios
800,000
Mass-affluent households (CHF 200k – 2M)
CHF 600B
Investable wealth in the segment
250k → 1–2M
UBS wealth threshold (2024 – 2026)
60%
Already own ETFs (vs. 38% national)
04/Why now

Four forces. One window. 36 months.

The acquisition window closes when Bellevue, VT Wealth, and Crossinvest finish the roll-up.

800
Force 01

UBS orphaned the mass-affluent

The CS-affluent banker cohort was reassigned out of Wealth Management into Personal Banking. Hundreds of thousands of households structurally downgraded. They are looking.

50%
Force 02

The EAM industry is collapsing

FinIA forced 800 EAMs out 2020–2022. Half of the surviving 1,500 firms have managing directors over 60. Deloitte projects 500–1,000 more exits in the next decade.

08/24
Force 03

FINMA Guidance 08/2024 defined the legal product

"Responsibility for decisions cannot be delegated to AI or third parties." Kills every foreign robo. Blesses one model: licensed entity owning both the AI stack and the human accountability layer.

36mo
Force 04

AI broke the cost-to-serve floor

What used to require a CHF 250k/year relationship manager — integrated planning, continuous suitability, tax-aware rebalancing — now runs at marginal cost on the stack we already built at Konsol.

2026 · Window open 2027 2028 2029 · Window closes
05/Competitive map

Nobody actually competes for the household we serve.

Every player is structurally locked out of the integrated mass-affluent stack.

Integrated advice Product-led
Mass-affluent × Integrated
HNW × Integrated
Mass-affluent × Product-led
HNW × Product-led
Pictet · Julius Bär · UBS WM CHF 5M+ · Bespoke
1,500 surviving FINSA-EAMs Median 3.3 FTE · Founders 60+
Sygnum · AMINA Crypto-native · No 3a, no BVG
Wealthfront · Range · Compound US RIA — cannot enter (FINMA + FADP)
True Wealth · Selma · Findependent Robo ETF · No integrated planning
Alpian Banking license, not advice license
Helvara
CHF 200k – 2M · Integrated
Mass-affluent HNW
06/The Corgi move

We acquire the license. We don't wrap it.

The Corgi move, costed at one-sixth of Corgi.

Wrapper
Sell software to existing EAMs

Margin 5–15%, the EAM owns the client, FINMA Guidance 08/2024 explicitly forbids delegating decision responsibility. Dead on arrival.

! Charter
Apply de novo for FINSA license
18–24mo

FINMA authorization 9–18 months. No client book, no custody relationships, no AUM. Series A becomes a regulatory application, not a business.

Acquire
Buy a distressed FINSA-licensed EAM
6mo

Change-of-control in 4–8 months. Inherit license + 2–4 custody relationships + audit history. Launch in month 6, not month 24.

Target profile: CHF 150–300M AUM, 2–3 partners aged 60+, German-Switzerland, AOOS or FINcontrol-supervised, clean three-year audit.
Acquisition budget: CHF 4–7M (1–3% of AUM in today's distressed market). Operating runway CHF 8–12M. Bolt-on reserve CHF 3–5M.
Corgi comp: $35M for the regulated entry. Ours: CHF 4–7M. The FinIA consolidation cycle is gifting us the entry multiple.
07/Product architecture

Four pillars. One brain. One licensed human at the top.

The integrated Swiss-household stack that no bank, no robo, and no EAM has ever assembled.

Licensed Senior Advisor — FINMA decision attribution
Pillar 01

ReaderOnboarding wedge

One agent ingests BVG pension certificate, 3a statements, custody PDFs, tax return, salary slips, mortgage terms, marriage contract, 1e documentation. Produces the consolidated household balance sheet no Swiss bank has ever shown the client.

Pillar 02

PlannerContinuous advice

3a contribution timing, Pillar 2 buy-in capacity, 1e self-direction, mortgage amortize-vs-invest, cantonal wealth-tax minimization, staggered 3a withdrawal, cross-cantonal mobility. Outputs: "Buy CHF 22k into BVG before Dec 31, tax saving CHF 7,200."

Pillar 03

MandateFINSA-discretionary execution

ETF-only, multi-currency, tax-aware (Irish-domiciled accumulating in the taxable bucket, Swiss-domiciled where stamp-duty wins, 100% equity in 3a). Rebalancing automatic; suitability re-assessed on every life event. Custody white-labelled at pass-through cost.

Pillar 04

EstateThe 30-year client

Family tree mapped at onboarding, cantonal inheritance tax modelled, gifts and titling planned, heirs onboarded as adjacent accounts before the event. Inverts the failure mode of every Swiss bank: 70–80% of heirs change institution.

Foundation Konsol AI infrastructure · 9 agents · 18 MCP tools · shipped
One Senior Advisor per 300–400 households owns FINMA decision attribution across all four pillars. Industry norm: 60–80. Everything else is AI.
08/Fee architecture

60 bps. All-in. Everything included.

The client saves CHF 10–25k per year, every year, forever. This is not a fee discount.

Cost stack
Today, CHF 800k Helvara
Management feeEAM or bank mandate
100–150 bps 60 bps
Embedded fund / product fees
50–150 bps ~10 bps
Custody markup
15–25 bps 8–12 bps
Treuhänder
CHF 600–6,000/yr Included
Suitability · planning · estate
(none, or extra) Included
All-in / year
200–400 bps ~80 bps
CHF / year on CHF 800k
CHF 16k–32k CHF 6,400
CHF / year on CHF 800k household
Mgmt125 bps
Product100 bps
Custody20 bps
Treuhand30 bps
Hidden
CHF 16k–32k Today · 200–400 bps
80 bps all-in
CHF 6,400 Helvara · 60 bps mgmt
No kickbacks. No retros.
No in-house structured products. No performance fees.
Lifetime saving (12 yrs)
CHF 120k – 300k per household
What this is
The exact margin transfer Corgi executed on US broker compensation.
09/Wedge customer

The 42-year-old Zurich dual-earner with CHF 800k and a mortgage.

They're already on r/SwissPersonalFinance. They're already in ETFs. They're already looking.

Lara & Marc
42 · Zurich-Wiedikon · Dual-earner, no dependants yet
Household income
CHF 285,000
Investable assets
CHF 850,000
Mortgage (cantonal bank)
CHF 1,100,000
ETF brokerage (Swissquote / IBKR)
CHF 510,000
Pillar 3a (2× VIAC + finpension)
CHF 138,000
Cash / orderly
CHF 202,000
Annual Treuhänder spend
CHF 600
Hours / year on finances
~ 40 h
Trusts the bank's advice
No
Annual saving with Helvara
CHF 14,200
~ CHF 170,000 over a 12-year client tenure.
Plus the integrated planning that wasn't possible at any price point on this stack.
Wedge TAM: 800,000 households × CHF 700k avg = CHF 560B.
Channels: Mustachian Post, r/SwissPersonalFinance (~60k subs), The Poor Swiss, founder-led BD, referral loop.
CAC: CHF 800–1,500 year 1 → CHF 400–700 steady state. Referral-dense ICP.
10/Market sizing

CHF 560B of orphaned wealth. CHF 3.4B of annual fee pool.

Bottom-up, household-by-household. No "1% of $X trillion."

TAM · Swiss mass-affluent
CHF 560B AUM
800,000 households
CHF 3.4B fee pool / yr
SAM · German-Swiss ETF-aware
CHF 175B AUM
250,000 households
CHF 1.0B fee pool / yr
SOM · Year 5
CHF 12–16B
15,000–20,000 households · CHF 72–96M ARR
EBITDA-positive at CHF 1.5B AUM · ~3,000 households · only 31% of existing Swiss private banks exceed this (KPMG 2025)
SOM is the seed-to-Series-C household count. SAM is German-speaking Switzerland alone with ETF affinity. TAM is the whole orphaned middle.
Current Swiss EAM industry total AUM: CHF ~600B across 1,500 firms — same order of magnitude as our TAM at the segment they don't target.
Expansion (Series A+): Romandie + expat tech cohort (Google / Meta / Apple / OpenAI Zurich, ~30k households, higher avg balance).
11/Unit economics

4–6 month payback. 25× LTV/CAC. EBITDA-positive at CHF 1.5B AUM.

Built on 12-year Swiss client tenure and a Pillar-4 estate layer that extends it to 25.

25×
LTV / CAC · Reference CHF 700k household
Revenue / client / year
CHF 4,200
Gross margin
75% · CHF 3,150
CAC (Y1 → steady)
CHF 1,500 → 600
Tenure (with Pillar 4)
12 → 25 yrs
LTV (12y horizon)
CHF 38,000
NRR target
105 – 115%
Scaling curve · AUM × EBITDA margin
The model crosses cost-of-equity at CHF 1.5B AUM — a threshold only 31% of existing Swiss private banks exceed today. At CHF 12B AUM we run Pictet's economics on a fraction of Pictet's headcount.
12/Moats

Four moats. Each one compounds. None of them can be bought.

The license is the door. The dataset is the lock-in.

M / 01

The FINSA license

Charter route: 9–18 months minimum, no AUM. Acquisition route: needs the consolidation window we're inside. By Series A, this moat is locked.

Replication5–10 yr
M / 02

Wholesale custody relationships

Pictet · VP Bank · Bordier · Lombard Odier wholesale pricing requires 12 months and CHF 50–200M AUM minimums to establish de novo. We inherit 2–4 with the acquisition.

Replication3–5 yr
M / 03

The Swiss-household integrated dataset

BVG × 3a × tax × mortgage × cantonal mobility interactions in ways no public dataset and no foreign training corpus contains. Denser with every cohort. Only exists inside the licensed entity.

Replication
M / 04

Brand inside the Mustachian / PoorSwiss / r/SwissPersonalFinance trust network

Earned, not bought. Compounds through referral. The channel cost that goes to zero.

Replicationearned

Regulatory perimeter FINMA Guidance 08/2024

The regulatory perimeter is now drawn around the exact shape we are. Foreign robos cannot enter. Non-licensed AI vendors cannot sell. The 1,500 surviving EAMs cannot pivot (median 3.3 FTE, no engineering capability). They are our acquisition targets, not our competition.

13/Team

Built the AI stack. Built the EAM network. Building Helvara.

Konsol AG is the engine. Signa is the EAM relationship. Helvara is the move.

Founder & CEO

Philipp Pünjer

Swiss-resident, DE-native, technical operator. Built Konsol AG solo in 6 weeks — 9 production AI agents, 18 MCP tools — the underlying agent infrastructure Helvara runs on. The Reader and Planner pillars are not roadmap; they are configurations of an already-shipped stack.
Already shipped
Konsol AI stack — 9 agents · 18 MCP tools · production
Already warm
Acquisition pipeline via Signa relationships with FINSA-licensed EAM principals
Already introduced
Custody-bank routes via CFA Society Switzerland
Already inside
Founder-led content already inside Mustachian / PoorSwiss / r/SwissPersonalFinance
Hire 01

Head of Compliance / FINMA Liaison

Ex-supervisory or ex-AOOS. Drives the change-of-control submission, owns the regulatory voice of the firm.

Hire 02

Senior Wealth Advisor

FINSA-licensed, Swiss tax + pension expert. Pillar 1–4 decision owner, anchor of Senior Advisor cohort.

Hire 03

Head of M&A

Ex-Swiss FS PE or Bellevue / VT Wealth alumnus. Runs the bolt-on pipeline starting in Year 2.

Hire 04

Senior AI Engineer

Konsol-stack proficiency. Scales Reader + Planner against onboarded households.

Co-founder slotReserved for a licensed Senior Advisor, closing pre-acquisition.
14/Use of funds

CHF 18M Seed → license owned, 2,000 households, Series A at CHF 1B AUM.

24-month plan, three milestones, one regulator.

25%
8.3%
16.7%
11.1%
11.1%
16.7%
11.1%
CHF 4.5M
Acquisition #1
CHF 1.5M
Change-of-control + compliance
CHF 3.0M
AI product build-out
CHF 2.0M
Senior Advisor cohort (3 FTE)
CHF 2.0M
Go-to-market & channels
CHF 3.0M
Bolt-on acquisition #2 reserve
CHF 2.0M
Operating reserve & G&A
Total raise
CHF 18,000,000
24-month roadmap · Series A gates
M / 06
Change-of-control closed. License in our name. Custody relationships migrated.
M / 12
Reader + Planner + Mandate live. First 500 wedge-ICP households onboarded. Inherited book stabilized at 60–70% retention.
M / 18
1,500 households. CHF 800M AUM. NRR >110%. CAC < CHF 1,200.
M / 24 · Series A
2,000–2,500 households. CHF 1.2–1.5B AUM. ARR CHF 7–9M. Raise CHF 40–60M at CHF 200–300M post.
15/Vision · Year 5 → Year 8

The rail for European mass-affluent wealth.

By 2031, Helvara is the Swiss household's first wealth manager — and the only one any of them keep.

Deutschland'29
France'30
Italia'31
Helvetia '26
Year 5 · AUM
CHF 12–15B
Year 5 · ARR
CHF 72–96M
Year 5 · Households
15,000 – 20,000
Bolt-on acquisitions
4 – 6
Inherited via Pillar 4
CHF 1.5–3B

Year 5–8 · The European rail.

Same Corgi move, country by country: acquire the local regulated entity (BaFin §32 KWG in Germany, AMF in France, Consob in Italy), port the Helvara brain onto it, repeat. The AI stack ports. The license doesn't — which is why every market becomes a defensible standalone position, not a winner-take-all race.

Comparable · Series C Corgi · $630M on $40M ARR · 15.75×
Helvara · Series C target CHF 1.0–1.5B at CHF 70M ARR
Fundable by Lakestar · Index · General Catalyst · Insight

Helvara — Index

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