Auckland Startup eccuity Is Reimagining Modern Wealth Management
Auckland-based fintech eccuity is on a mission to make financial planning and investment advice more affordable, accessible and actionable.
Founded in 2024 by entrepreneur Charlie Meaden (CEO), the company provides advanced digital investment tools combined with human oversight to give everyday people access to next-gen personalised wealth management services historically reserved only for high-net-worth individuals.
For Meaden the inspiration for eccuity came from his own frustrations with the financial services industry. “Everyone has the right to build wealth for themselves and have the freedom to choose how they get there. But it felt like the system wasn’t designed for people like me,” he said, reflecting on the barriers many New Zealanders face when seeking professional financial advice.
Traditional wealth management, he noted, is expensive, inaccessible, and often limited to a small privileged segment of society. eccuity’s mission is to create a challenger brand to change that by leveraging fintech to bring transparency, affordability, and inclusivity to the sector.
According to Meaden, the platform is being built particularly with business owners, founders and high agency individuals in mind. “We want to enable access to high-quality financial data and advice at scale,” he said. By combining intuitive design with robust financial modelling, eccuity aims to offer customers clear visibility of their financial health, and future opportunities.
While robo-advisors and investment platforms have gained traction in recent years, eccuity is positioning itself as more than just another digital investment tool. Its key point of difference lies in providing access to holistic financial planning that takes into account an individual’s goals, lifestyle, and long-term needs.
“People don’t just want to know where to put their money in isolation. They want to understand how to align their financial decisions in conjunction with their life decisions,” Meaden explained. The platform incorporates budgeting, investing, insurance, and retirement planning into a single digital dashboard, making it easier for users to holistically navigate their complex financial choices.
Crucially, eccuity offers functionality that extends beyond traditional savings and investment advice. Users are currently able to invest directly in US equities and ETFs (Exchange Traded Funds), gain exposure to cryptocurrencies, and even model their portfolios on successful traders’ portfolios, giving a level of choice and customisation typically only accessible to sophisticated investors. Opening the platform to New Zealand and Australian equities are currently in the development pipeline. At the heart of the platform is a visual portfolio dashboard that allows users to track their net worth in real time, aggregating multiple asset classes into a single, easy-to-understand view.
One of eccuity’s core customer groups is business owners. Small and medium-sized business owners typically find themselves juggling both personal and company finances, with limited access to integrated advice. Meaden aims to address this gap by offering tools that help business owners manage cash flow, plan for growth, and align their personal wealth with their business goals.
Meaden noted that business owners often reinvest heavily into their companies without clear visibility of how this impacts their long-term wealth. eccuity’s platform provides clarity by showing how business equity, investments, and personal finances interact on a single dashboard. “It’s about giving business owners the confidence to make better decisions for both their company and their family’s future,” he said.
A key differentiator for eccuity is its membership model, known as Eccuity Private. Instead of following the traditional commission-based structure where investors pay fees on every trade or transaction, eccuity charges users a transparent annual membership. This approach, Meaden explained, removes conflicts of interest and aligns the company’s incentives transparently with its members’ long-term financial wellbeing.
“By charging a flat membership fee, we can focus on delivering value through access to expert advice, tools, and outcomes, rather than profiting every time someone makes a trade,” Meaden said. This model provides predictability for users, while encouraging them to take advantage of the platform’s full range of features without worrying about incurring costs each time they act.
eccuity uses advanced financial modelling and analytics to simulate different scenarios for each user, helping them see the impact of their decisions over time. By doing so, it empowers users not only to save and invest but also to make better day-to-day financial decisions.
One of the challenges, Meaden admitted, is balancing automation with the human touch. “We don’t see technology as replacing human advisors completely,” he said. Instead, eccuity envisions a hybrid model where technology does the heavy lifting—crunching numbers, identifying patterns, and personalising recommendations—while facilitating access to human advisors for complex or personal situations.
This approach reflects a broader global trend in wealth management, where technology augments rather than replaces human expertise.
eccuity has already attracted attention from both potential users and investors. The startup has been live with early adopters in New Zealand for 12 months, with users helping evolve and refine the product. Users, according to Meaden, have responded positively to the clarity and accessibility of the platform.
The market opportunity is significant. According to research from the Financial Markets Authority, nearly half of New Zealanders have never sought professional financial advice, citing cost and lack of access as major barriers. By effectively lowering those barriers, eccuity believes it can serve a large, underserved segment of the population.
Behind eccuity is a growing team of eight staff members with expertise across finance, technology, and design. “We’ve been very deliberate in building a team that understands both the technical and human sides of wealth,” Meaden said. The company is actively expanding as it moves toward its official product launch.
In addition to building out its advisory platform, the company is also investing in education and financial literacy initiatives, recognising that technology alone is not enough. “Financial wellbeing is about knowledge and being well informed as much as it is about tools,” Meaden said.
As eccuity prepares for its public launch, Meaden remains clear-eyed about both the opportunities and challenges ahead. Scaling a fintech business in a highly regulated industry is no small task, and the company will need to navigate both compliance and consumer trust as it grows. However, Meaden is optimistic. “If we can help even a fraction of New Zealanders feel more confident about their financial future, then we’re on the right path,” he said.
Looking beyond New Zealand, the founders see potential for eccuity’s model to expand internationally, especially in markets where financial advice remains out of reach for the majority of people. But for now, their focus is firmly on delivering value to local users.
The rise of fintech has already transformed how people save, invest, and transact. With eccuity, Meaden and his team are betting that the next frontier is personalised, technology-driven wealth management that allows individuals to create strategies for their careers, businesses and wealth using their expert network and tools.
As Meaden put it: “We’re here to make financial advice accessible, affordable, and meaningful for everyone—not just the privileged wealthy few.”
Interview and story by Richard Liew
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