12
Mar
2026

IA Engine drives innovation and welcomes seven new FinTech firms to its Innovator and Advanced Access Programmes

12 March 2026, London – The Investment Association’s (IA) FinTech hub and accelerator, IA Engine, has today announced the latest cohort of firms to join its Innovator and Advanced Access Programmes at its EmTech Global 2026 conference.

The twelve-month Innovator Programme selects FinTech firms to receive support and mentoring from the Engine Advisory Panel, a group of experts from across the investment management industry, as well as opportunities to showcase solutions at industry events. The following five firms have been chosen to join this year’s cohort:

  • 3AI is building the Alpha Intelligence layer for capital markets – a self-learning network of connected AI systems that transforms global financial data into intelligent, deeply explained forecasts of future equity returns, outperforming professional analyst forecasts by 20?. Today, 3AI powers buy-side investment institutions managing $15T+ in assets through alpha forecast data for systematic investors, AI-enhanced indices developed with S&P Global, structured financial products such as fixed indexed annuities with Barclays, direct investment strategies, and deep AI-generated research for portfolio managers.
  • Alphaloops saw that investment firms can spend over 60% of sales time on repetitive tasks, which forces trade-offs between coverage and quality, and realised the industry needed AI workers built for finance. AlphaLoops was born to solve these problems and unlock the investment industry to do much more with less – systematically and at scale.
  • Multiply was founded to remove the barriers that make financial advice costly and inefficient. By leveraging AI and automation, Multiply helps firms streamline processes, reduce overheads and expand access to high-quality advice.
  • Orbit is an award-winning investment research platform designed to empower informed, data-driven decision-making. Orbit’s extensive coverage, coupled with rigorous quality control measures, ensures automated workflows, streamlining research processes and uncovering critical insights.
  • Tokenovate provides distributed financial market infrastructure, including tokenisation and blockchain-powered smart contracts, enabling post-trade lifecycle event management of workflows for Over the Counter and exchange traded derivatives.

Engine’s Advanced Access Programme, designed for larger and more established FinTechs, will be welcoming two new firms to join the 3-month programme:

  • Conquest Planning is built on the belief that every person deserves access to financial advice. Users of Conquest Planning leverage its intuitively designed product, simple onboarding process and data-driven artificial intelligence to accelerate the delivery of well designed, hyper-personalised financial plans.
  • FundGuard is an AI-powered, cloud-native investment accounting platform redefining how asset managers and fund administrators operate. By unifying support for all asset classes, books of record, investment products and jurisdictions on a single platform, FundGuard drives digital transformation, operational automation, AI-based insights, and resilient cloud-native scalability.

Through the Advanced Access Programme, Conquest Planning and FundGuard will receive support and guidance from the Engine Advisory Panel and FinTech Growth Panel, as well as advice and support from IA experts and access to the IA knowledge centre.

The successful firms will be announced at IA Engine’s EmTech Global Conference, held today at The Minster Building in London.

John Allan, Director of Innovation and Operations Unit and Director of Engine, commented: “Innovation is at the heart of our industry’s growth mission. Embracing the very latest advances in AI, tokenisation, quantum and other breakthrough technologies – and partnering with the most dynamic FinTechs at the cutting edge – is key to ensuring that the UK is able to deliver for customers and continues to be a global hub for investment management.”   

Simon Swords, Chair of the Engine Advisory Panel (and ex Managing Director at Fundipedia, Engine Innovator Programme Cohort 4), said: “Having experienced the value of the IA Engine programme first-hand, it’s hugely encouraging to see the calibre of firms joining this year. Each of these firms is tackling real, practical challenges for the industry, from data and infrastructure to advice and client outcomes. The Advisory Panel is excited to support them as they scale their solutions and engage directly with investment managers.”

ENDS

For further information, please contact:

Helen Ayres, Head of Communications: [email protected]

T: +44 (0)20 7269 4620

Sebastian Merrett, Communications Manager: [email protected]

T: +44 7802 449693

IA Press Office: [email protected]

About the Investment Association (IA):

  • The IA champions UK investment management, supporting British savers, investors and businesses. Our 250 members manage £10.0 trillion of assets.
  • Our mission is to make investment better. Better for clients, so they achieve their financial goals. Better for companies, so they get the capital they need to grow. And better for the economy, so everyone prospers.
  • Our purpose is to ensure investment managers are in the best possible position to:
    • Build people’s resilience to financial adversity
    • Help people achieve their financial aspirations
    • Enable people to maintain a decent standard of living as they grow older
    • Contribute to economic growth through the efficient allocation of capital.
  • The money our members manage is in a wide variety of investment vehicles including authorised investment funds, pension funds and stocks and shares ISAs.
  • The UK is the second largest investment management centre in the world after the US, and manages £5.1 trillion in overseas client AUM.

About Engine:   

  • Engine is the Investment Association’s FinTech hub, launched in 2018. 
  • Engine’s mission is simple: To fuel the adoption of technology within investment management, for the benefit and changing needs of clients.
  • We’re working with 100+ FinTech firms and partners across the investment value chain to open tech-driven possibilities and solve the challenges faced by investment firms, both big and small.