Both companies declined to disclose the price of the transaction. The deal involves 17,400 accounts with US$190 million in assets under management (AUM), said Betterment spokesperson Danielle Shechtman. Wealthsimple will not cut any staff as a result of the sale, and its U.K. business will keep operating independently, said spokesperson Sarah Pattillo. (The Logic)

Talking point: The U.S. business represents a small piece of Wealthsimple’s $8.4 billion in AUM. The Power Corp.-controlled company launched its automated investing service there in January 2017, but did not achieve the scale of local giants like Vanguard (US$212 billion in AUM, per research firm Backend Benchmarking), Schwab (US$58 billion) or Betterment (US$18 billion). Instead, Wealthsimple has expanded its consumer-focused services in Canada, launching a savings account and debit card in January 2020, cryptocurrency trading in July 2020, and a Venmo-like cash app in January. The company is refocusing on its home market with an increasingly international group of investors—it raised $114 million in a round led by Silicon Valley fund TCV in October 2020 and $100 million, led by German insurer Allianz X, in May 2019.