“We Shouldn’t Have Won That Deal – But We Did”
When a £400M regional DFM beat a £10B platform player to win a high-net-worth family mandate, even the CEO was surprised.
The brief was clear: full visibility, custom reporting, seamless onboarding across generations, and real-time oversight. The incumbent pitched a seven-month implementation. The DFM offered full platform access in eight weeks.
How? They didn’t rely on a legacy stack. Instead, they had quietly built a new one – lean, modular and entirely their own.
“We used to feel ten steps behind the big guys,” their COO said. “Now we’re building faster than they are. And clients can feel it.”
What If Small Was the New Scalable?
Big firms have always had the advantage: bigger tech budgets, bigger vendor leverage, bigger in-house teams. But now, something’s changed.
Mid-sized DFMs and consolidators finally have access to infrastructure once reserved for the giants – and they’re using it to move faster, serve better and scale smarter.
They’re not just catching up. In many ways, they’re pulling ahead.
The Infrastructure Gap Isn’t Just a Barrier – It’s an Opening
Across the sector, legacy infrastructure is slowing everyone down.
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It takes too long to onboard clients
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Data sits in silos
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Compliance is retrofitted, not embedded
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Customisation is costly or completely blocked
But for mid-market firms, this isn’t just frustrating – it’s an opportunity.
Because they’re not locked into old systems. They don’t have thousands of legacy users to migrate. And they’re not bound by decade-old contracts with third-party vendors.
That means they can leapfrog the traditional route to growth – and build a platform tailored to what today’s clients actually expect.
Graphene Makes It Possible – Without Big-Tech Overheads
Graphene was built for this exact moment.
It’s an infrastructure-as-a-service layer that gives wealth firms full control of their tech stack – without the cost or complexity of an in-house build.
With Graphene, firms can:
The result? Firms increase margin by 20–30%, cut annual costs by up to €250K, and improve enterprise value by millions.
It’s infrastructure once only available to large players – now delivered through a lean, flexible model built for firms managing between £150M and £3B.
This Is the Rise of the Micro Platform
Just like microbrands disrupted retail and challenger banks rewrote the playbook for current accounts, a new generation of “micro platforms” is emerging in wealth.
These are lean, tech-enabled firms that control their own destiny – and their own infrastructure.
They’re offering personalised, digital-first service to clients who won’t settle for outdated portals and PDF statements. They’re building configurable workflows that fit the adviser, not the vendor. And they’re doing it all without waiting for a legacy platform’s next product sprint.
What they lack in size, they make up for in speed. And speed wins.
You Don’t Need Scale to Start – You Need Control
The big guys still have the AUM. But the future won’t be won by the largest. It’ll be won by the most agile.
If you’re a mid-market firm wondering whether it’s time to level up – it is. The tools you need are already here.
All you have to do is stop waiting for the future of wealth management – and start building it.
Curious what it would look like to run your own platform? Let’s talk.
Ownership is the key to unlocking sustainable growth, resilience, and long-term success." – Graphene
Ready to transform your infrastructure?
Book a Discovery Call with Graphene today and take the first step toward building an infrastructure you control, data you trust, and a business built for the future.
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