Ashton Kutcher is betting alongside the Boston Behemoth ... Wait, what?

Ashton Kutcher Sound Ventures Co-Founder

Sound Ventures (the venture capital fund founded by Kutcher, a Hollywood star, and Guy Oseary, the manager of Madonna and U2) and Fidelity are two of the investors participating in the $13-million series A funding round recently closed by New York City-based Ethic Inc., Ethic co-founder and CEO Doug Scott confirmed yesterday. One of Ethic's current backers, VC firm Nyca Partners led the round, and existing investors Kapor Capital, ThirdStream Partners, and Urban Innovation Fund also participated.

News of the round closing comes a week after independent RIA ally Dynasty Financial Partners publicly confirmed plans to add Ethic's wares to the Dynasty TAMP and nine months after Ethic secured $6.8 million in funding. (That brings Ethic's total funding amount so far to $19.8 million.)

Citywire and InvestmentNews picked up on Ethic's series A news.

Ethic specializes in ESG investing, but more customized. The shop favors creating "personalized investment portfolios" (sounds like SMAs?) over using pooled vehicles like ETFs and mutual funds.

"We believe it is pioneering the future of equities investing," states Hans Morris, managing partner at Nyca. "Every investor can create an individual portfolio customized to the environmental, social and governance factors that matter to the most. The effects can be enormous as Ethic is effectively powering a personalized ETF for everyone."

"The last big shift in wealth management was from active to passive investing," Scott states. "We are now in the midst of the next revolution in wealth management, characterized by a shift to personalized investing, which we believe will disrupt the traditional model of financial product creation."

ETF.com founder Jim Wiandt is another Ethic backer. 

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