Most of the money flooding into the wealth-management business right now comes with a catch: to take it, you usually have to sell your firm. The aggregators write big checks, absorb your brand, and slot your advisors into someone else's platform. Rise Growth Partners was built on the wager that a meaningful number of founders want the opposite - the capital and the expertise, but not the exit.
Founded in 2023 and based in Austin, Texas, Rise takes meaningful minority stakes in registered investment advisors (RIAs) and then goes to work: deal-making support, operational guidance, recruiting, marketing and succession planning. The firm launched publicly in early 2024 with a $250 million capital commitment from private equity firm Charlesbank Capital Partners. Its founder, Joe Duran, has spent a career building wealth firms and selling them - and this time he is backing other people's.
The Thesis
A partner, not a buyer
The distinction sounds small and is not. When a consolidator acquires an RIA, control moves. When Rise invests, the founder keeps the wheel. Rise describes itself as a synergistic partner for growth-oriented advisors, aiming to acquire minority stakes in a select group of firms and give them the tools to scale into next-generation national platforms. In practice, that means targeting firms with roughly $1 billion to $5 billion in assets under management and helping them push toward $10 billion and beyond.
The gap Rise is trying to fill is a real one. Plenty of successful advisory firms hit a ceiling: they have loyal clients and good margins, but they lack the capital, the M&A know-how or the operational scaffolding to grow aggressively or plan an orderly generational handoff. Selling outright solves the money problem and creates a control problem. Rise's pitch is that founders should not have to choose.
Turning bold visions into remarkable realities. - Rise Growth Partners
The Founder
Joe Duran's third act
Duran is not new to this. Early in his career he built Centurion Capital, one of the first turnkey asset management platforms, and sold it to General Electric, where he ran GE Private Asset Management. He went on to found and lead United Capital, one of the largest independent wealth managers in the country, which Goldman Sachs acquired. At Goldman he served as a partner and co-head of the workplace and personal wealth business before leaving to start Rise.
That track record is the product Rise is really selling. Capital is a commodity - there is a great deal of private equity chasing RIAs. What is scarcer is a team that has actually built, scaled and sold wealth firms and can sit across the table from a founder as a peer. Rise's leadership bench is stacked with veterans from United Capital, Goldman Sachs and Charles Schwab, including managing partners Terri Kallsen and Tony Ling.
Capital
Minority growth equity, funded by the Charlesbank commitment - without taking control.
M&A
Hands-on help sourcing, structuring and closing acquisitions to grow inorganically.
Operations
Building next-generation platforms, technology and operational efficiency.
People
Advisor recruiting and succession planning to attract talent and plan transitions.
The Portfolio
Four bets, quietly assembled
Rise has not rushed. Its first partnership was with Bleakley Financial Group, which later rebranded as OnePoint BFG Wealth Partners. In February 2025 it announced a minority investment in Grimes & Company to accelerate growth and geographic expansion. In October 2025 came Krilogy, a St. Louis-based RIA managing roughly $4.1 billion, in a deal framed around growth, talent development and advisor succession. And in March 2026 Rise backed Cyndeo Wealth Partners, a Florida firm managing about $3.1 billion for business owners, entrepreneurs and professional athletes in the NBA and NFL - its fourth investment.
Read together, the deals describe a deliberate strategy rather than a land grab. Each target is an established, founder-led firm with room to run, and each announcement leans on the same themes: growth, succession and building a durable platform. Geographically, the portfolio has spread from the Northeast into the Midwest and, most recently, the Southeast.
Let's Rise. To build something extraordinary. Together. - Rise Growth Partners
The Market
Where Rise sits in the RIA gold rush
The independent advisory business has been consolidating for years, and capital has poured in from private equity, insurers and the aggregators themselves. Firms like Focus Financial, Mercer Advisors, Creative Planning and Wealth Enhancement Group have grown by buying and integrating RIAs outright. Rise is playing a different position on the same field: closer to a minority growth investor such as Merchant Investment Management than to a full-ownership roll-up.
That positioning is both the opportunity and the risk. Minority stakes mean Rise cannot force integration or dictate strategy; it has to win by being useful. But it also means the firm can partner with founders who would never entertain a sale, widening the pool of firms it can work with. Backed by Charlesbank - which holds a majority stake in Rise itself - the firm has the balance sheet to be patient.
The Timeline
From launch to four deals
The Read
What to watch
Rise's model will ultimately be judged on whether its partner firms actually reach the scale the firm promises, and whether minority ownership gives Rise enough leverage to add the value it advertises. Two years in, the evidence is a growing but still small portfolio and a leadership team betting that experience travels. For founders weighing whether to sell or to scale, Rise is trying to offer a third door - and for now, four firms have walked through it.