Hundreds of people from the financial services world descended on St. Louis this week for the second annual Innovation Summit from Edward Jones Ventures, the venture capital arm of the hometown financial giant. Held at Washington University’s Knight Center, the event drew mostly Edward Jones advisors and employees, along with representatives from firms like Blackstone and BlackRock, startup founders pitching their companies, and partners the firm already works with.
The location is no accident. “It is purposely held here in St. Louis,” said Edward Jones partner Greg Robinson, who leads Edward Jones Ventures. “We want to be where the industry goes to innovate.” The goal, he said, is to keep building that momentum organically until it sticks for good.
Now in its second year, the summit serves two purposes: surfacing fresh ideas that could improve the services Edward Jones offers, and giving the firm’s tens of thousands of advisors an early look at tools that may soon land in their hands.
Among the companies in the spotlight were three Edward Jones has already invested in: Vanilla, a Bellevue, Washington-based platform that streamlines estate planning; Waterlily, a San Francisco company using AI to help predict the cost and resources clients will need for long-term care; and Carefull, also based in San Francisco, a financial safety platform that guards against scams, fraud, and costly mistakes affecting older adults.
For advisors in the audience, the pitches hit close to home. Aron Matsuyama, an Edward Jones advisor from Huntsville, Alabama, said he’s eager for Vanilla’s broader rollout early next year after recently onboarding a client with more than $10 million in assets and no estate plan. “The majority of people and families don’t have estate plans,” he said. “This will help make this more streamlined.”
Tara Buckley, an advisor from Gaffney, South Carolina, was curious about Waterlily as a tool she could get her head around for clients planning long-term care. Other pitches included Flock Homes, which aims to simplify managing rental real estate portfolios, and Capintel, which makes investment presentations easier to build. Shawn Fowler, an advisor from Auburn, Washington, was drawn to Flock Homes, noting he’d never had a good tool to offer clients with large real estate holdings.
Robinson explained that Edward Jones looks for startups that solve a real problem in serving its millions of clients — a different lens than a traditional venture firm chasing financial returns alone. “We’re very relationship driven, so we try to not put any undue burden onto the startup that might smother it or take away from its innovation,” he said.
Meilii Gensler, Edward Jones’ managing director of client segments and innovation, said the firm pairs portfolio founders directly with advisors so products are shaped by real, boots-on-the-ground experience. “When these amazing smart founders get that injection of insight, boots on the ground experience, wisdom, they’re able to build in a way that gets product market fit a lot faster than is typical,” she said.
Founders say the partnership cuts both ways. “You can build so much these days,” said Todd Rovak, CEO and co-founder of Carefull. “That Jones has a strategy around broad financial wellness, but also making sure that families are OK, tells us what to build next.” A St. Louis native now living on the West Coast, Rovak added that Edward Jones’ backing works like a stamp of approval: “Jones has such a big impact and such a big presence that when they do something, everybody [in the industry] pays attention and listens.”
While many of the portfolio companies are based far from St. Louis, Robinson hopes the firm’s local presence pulls more of them into the region’s orbit. “Our portfolio companies, whether they’re in Canada, San Francisco, New York, spend an unreal amount of time here in St. Louis because of what we have built,” he said. “Our hope over time is either some of the startups build offices here, or they eventually get started here as well.”
And the summit isn’t going anywhere. “We will continue to have this event held here. It will continue to expand,” Robinson said. “Not only do they get this opportunity to see Edward Jones, but they get a chance to experience the St. Louis that you and I and so many others see on a daily basis, and how amazing it is.”
