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Toronto’s 50 Most Influential: #38, Michael Katchen

By Toronto Life

| November 28, 2016

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Michael Katchen

Founder and CEO, Wealthsimple

38When 25-year-old Michael Katchen sold his photo-digitization business to Ancestry.com in 2012, he found himself coaching his business partners on how best to invest their windfall. The experience inspired him to start Wealthsimple, an investing app for the financially illiterate. The business now has $600 million in assets. Power Financial VP Paul Desmarais III has committed up to $30 million, and millennials are buying in, too: 80 per cent of the app’s 25,000 users are under 45. This year, the service won a Webby for best financial services website.

Up next:

Attracting financial planners to Wealthsimple for Advisors, a version of the app that allows professionals to outsource their most tedious work.

Michael Katchen

Founder and CEO, Wealthsimple

Up next:

Toronto's Most Influential People of 2016

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