Focal, a San Francisco, CA-based AI-powered productivity platform for financial advisors, has raised a $5 million seed round.
Investors
The round was co-led by Distributed Ventures and Wischoff Ventures, with participation from industry leaders and executives across the financial services sector.
Distributed Ventures is an early-stage venture capital firm that focuses on technologies designed to transform and mitigate risk across several core sectors. The firm invests in early-stage startups in insurtech, fintech, and healthtech, typically at the Seed to Series A stages.
Wischoff Ventures is an early-stage venture capital firm founded in 2020 by Nichole Wischoff and based in New York. The firm focuses on pre-seed and seed investments, with three funds totaling about $75 million under management. Wischoff Ventures backs startups in industries such as fintech, supply chain, logistics, industrial tech, and vertical SaaS.
Focal Use of Funds
The company will use the funding to accelerate product development, enhance AI-driven workflow automation, and expand enterprise adoption across financial advisory firms.
About Focal
Founded by John Connell, Jerry Bai, and Clay Stupi, Focal is an AI productivity platform built for financial advisors and enterprise wealth teams. Its technology captures insights from advisor conversations and tools to power workflow automation and client intelligence. Its suite includes AI note-taking, pre-meeting preparation, CRM syncing, performance coaching, onboarding, and KYC workflow support. With enterprise-grade security and compliance-first design, Focal enables advisors to reclaim time, increase capacity and improve client outcomes.
Funding Details
Company: Focal
Raised: $5.0M
Round: Seed
Funding Date: October 2025
Lead Investors: Distributed Ventures, Wischoff Ventures
Additional Investors: Jason Pereira, Jamie Hopkins, Kellan Brown, Michael Batnick
Company Website: https://www.getfocal.ai/
Software Category: FinTech / AI Productivity Platform for Financial Advisors
Source: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20251009584071/en/