Forme Financial comes out of beta as Earned, raises $12M

Earned is a wealth system tailored specifically for physicians

Wealth management is a fragmented and complicated experience, one where every step of the process is siloed, from debt management to investments and tax planning. 

While this is universally true, it's especially difficult for physicians, who face unique financial complexity that emanates from their career, said John Clendening, co-founder and CEO of Earned, a wealth system for physicians. Formerly known as Forme Financial, the company officially launched out of beta, along with an $12 million Series A funding round, last week.

"Due to their extended education and training, they have a decade less to create enough wealth to retire. On top of this, physicians get their first full time job, and overnight their incomes increase by 5 to 15x, yet on average they have $300,000 in debt," he said.

Additionally, they are facing remarkable change in employment types – all of these factors add up to specific needs in their financial planning."

What Earned provides them with is a centralized, “full-stack,” tech-forward approach that maximizes physicians’ wealth, helping them earn more, invest smarter, and reduce risk. 

When clients sign up Earned, they are paired with a hand-picked, physician-trained CFP. In its hybrid model, clients stay on top of their current and predicted financial situation, as well as collaborate with the team, through its website and app. The company offers advisory that optimizes each key aspect of their financial life, meaning career, investing, taxes, insurance, lending, cash management/budgeting, and trust and estate.  

As it comes out of beta, Earned has worked with over 100 clients in 24 states and saved its physician clients an average of $77,000 in taxes alone. In addition, over 70% of its users log in weekly, triple the industry average.

Going forward, Earned will fully transition away from the Forme brand over the next six months. In the meantime, physicians can access all of Forme's existing services via the Forme app.

This name change was always planned, Clendening said.

"The company’s vision always included a name change from the beta brand. We did extensive physician research and incorporated input from our physician advisory council in landing the new name, Earned. The new name consistently resonated with the perspective of physicians who have invested in their career as their number one asset," he explained.

Earned's new $12 million round, which brings its total funding to $18 million, was led by Hudson Structured Capital Management and Breyer Capital, with participation from founding partner Juxtapose.

With this new round of funding, the company plans to expand its services, providing access to high-fidelity investments, tax prep, filing, insurance optimization, debt management, lending solutions, and career advisory. That also means its wealth engine will be personalized to the individual physician's goals and situation, and it help physicians to understand the implications of important career decisions, including buying into private practice or selecting from multiple job offers.

"We will build out core elements of our “full-stack” offering and our proprietary technology, which systematically optimizes our clients’ financial lives in the moment and over time.  This technology leverages AI and algorithms to get this done. This all points to a system that is built to reliably deliver transformatively superior outcomes," said Clendening. 

Ultimately, success for Earned means transforming the financial lives of what Clendening calls "the heroes of our society," so they are less stressed and can focus on why they became doctors in the first place, which is to provide care.

"We’ll become known as the only place physicians turn for financial advice. As we create a dominant wealth system for physicians, we’ll turn our attention to up-leveling the experience for other high earning professionals."

(Image source: earnedwealth.com)