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MADE FINANCIAL DESIGN
Chris Madeira established MADE FINANCIAL DESIGN in 2017 in San Francisco after leading user-experience design for retail-investor platforms at BlackRock...
MADE FINANCIAL DESIGN
Chris Madeira established MADE FINANCIAL DESIGN in 2017 in San Francisco after leading user-experience design for retail-investor platforms at BlackRock and Charles Schwab, where he observed that asset managers consistently outsourced the technology layer that defined their customer relationships. The firm registered as an investment advisor with the SEC while building an in-house design and engineering practice, giving it the license to manage client assets directly and the capability to ship consumer-grade investment interfaces. The firm's strategy spans both advisory and product-creation work. On the advisory side, MADE FINANCIAL DESIGN manages portfolios for individual clients using low-cost ETFs and factor-based allocations. The consultancy side develops digital investment products — robo-advisory workflows, goal-based planning tools, direct-indexing interfaces — for external RIAs, banks, and asset managers who need launch-ready consumer experiences without building internal technology teams. This dual posture means the firm's own managed accounts function as a live laboratory for the tools it sells to institutional clients. Geographic focus has been U.S.-centric, with client engagements concentrated on the West Coast and New York metro area. Team size and total assets under management are not publicly disclosed. The firm maintains its primary office in San Francisco. Chris Madeira remains the sole named principal and registered investment advisor representative on the firm's Form ADV, indicating a lean operator structure. No adjacent philanthropic vehicles, real-asset arms, or multi-family-office conversion has been reported. In September 2023, the firm launched a redesigned direct-to-consumer investment portal that incorporates automated tax-loss harvesting and fractional-share trading, reflecting a continued internal thesis that retail-investor UX is a durable competitive moat. The structural differentiator is the legal bundling of a design firm and a regulated RIA under one roof. Pure technology vendors cannot manage money, and pure RIAs rarely maintain in-house product-design teams capable of shipping production software. MADE FINANCIAL DESIGN uses its own ADV to prove the tools it white-labels to other advisors, a model that turns regulatory overhead into a sales argument — the firm ships code it already uses to manage real client assets.
General information
Firm type
Asset Manager
Year founded
2017
AUM
Undisclosed
Location
Region
North America
Country
United States
City
San Francisco
Corporate office
San Francisco, CA, United States
Principals
Chris Madeira
Founder & CEO
Sector focus
Frequently asked questions
Who runs investment decisions at MADE FINANCIAL DESIGN?
Chris Madeira, the founder and CEO, serves as the firm's chief investment officer and lead portfolio manager. His prior roles at BlackRock and Charles Schwab focused on the design and delivery of retail-investment products, not on fundamental securities analysis, so the firm's investment approach relies on rules-based ETF portfolios rather than single-stock selection.
Is MADE FINANCIAL DESIGN a design agency, an RIA, or a software company?
It is all three, legally bundled. The firm is a SEC-registered investment advisor that manages client assets directly and also operates an in-house product-design and engineering team that builds consumer-facing investment applications. The RIA license allows it to manage its own book of retail clients; the design studio serves external asset managers and banks.
Does MADE FINANCIAL DESIGN license its technology to other advisors?
Yes. A core part of the firm's business is developing white-label digital investment experiences — including robo-advisory platforms, goal-based planning modules, and direct-indexing interfaces — for external RIAs, banks, and asset managers. Because the firm uses these same tools to manage its own advisory clients, the products are pitched as battle-tested before a client deploys them.
What investment approach does MADE FINANCIAL DESIGN use for its managed accounts?
The firm constructs portfolios primarily from low-cost ETFs using factor-based and goal-oriented allocations. The strategy emphasizes automated rebalancing and tax-loss harvesting delivered through digital interfaces, consistent with Madeira's design-philosophy background at large retail-investment platforms.
Does MADE FINANCIAL DESIGN take outside capital or operate as a family office?
No public evidence suggests the firm operates as a family office or manages a single pool of private wealth. It is structured as an independent RIA and consultancy, serving multiple retail advisory clients and institutional design customers.
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