Forme Financial, a physician wealth management platform, enters beta with a rebranded name and $12 million in Series A funding.

Called now Earnedthe New York-based company offers a “comprehensive wealth system” focused on the needs of physicians, which John Clendening, co-founder and CEO of Earned, said was unique and often complex depending on the individual’s career stage.

Doctors spend about an extra 10 years on education, so that reduces their career path in terms of reaching retirement, Clendening explains. They leave college, often with an average debt of $300,000, and at the same time receive a 5x to 15x higher income after their residency or fellowship program.

In addition, he noticed a change in the way doctors think about job opportunities over the past five years. For example, think more about what it means financially to take on a new job, especially if they are moving from a private practice to a job for someone else.

“That means a significant amount of financial complexity,” Clendening said. “Doctors work an average of 70 hours a week and have never been trained in financial subjects. Despite being among the very highest wage earners, one in four physicians has retired in recent years with a net worth of $1 million or less. When they want to get help for this, they are faced with a system that is super one-size-fits-all. The so-called specialists or experts are completely silent and none of them talk to each other.”

Instead, Earned’s proprietary wealth engine combines a physician’s career with predictive technology to create data-driven financial recommendations for products such as wealth planning, taxation, debt management, insurance and investments. The company’s certified financial planners can also help physicians understand the implications of major career decisions, including purchasing a private practice or selecting from multiple job opportunities.

The company’s vision has always included a name change at the Serie A stage, but Clendening also explained that ‘Earned’ had more resonance because it related to ‘the mentality of doctors who see themselves as people who really have a lot in their careers invested as their number one. 1 asset.”

Earned earns money in a number of ways: charging customers a fee based on assets under management and commission, for example, or an initial fee when customers refinance or choose to purchase items such as insurance.

Since its beta launch in May 2022, Earned has partnered with more than 100 physicians in 24 states, with 71% of users logging in on a weekly basis. They also saved an average of $77,000 in taxes, Clendening said. He declined to disclose details about the company’s revenue.

Other banks and fintechs offer banking and other financial services for physicians; for example, Panacea Financial, PhysicianBanks.com, and Laurel Road. However, Clendening said most only offer loaner products and don’t look at the whole physician perspective.

“There are some edge competitors that have certain aspects of what we’re doing, it’s just not enough to have the kind of impact that we’re talking about,” Clendening said. “We are purpose built, exclusively for doctors, including career advice, as well as a full-stack approach. Think of a toolbox: we have every tool in the toolbox needed to optimize their financial lives. We are alone in that. We also use deep tech to reliably deliver what we optimize financially.”

In addition to the name change, the company also announced a $12 million Series A financing led by Hudson Structured Capital Management and Breyer Capital, with participation from Juxtapose. This latest round brings Earned’s total funding to $18 million since it began serving customers in 2022.

With this new round of funding, Clendening plans to invest in recruiting and technology to add more tools and features to its wealth engine with the goal of becoming what he called “a one-stop shop for physicians.” It also focuses on customer acquisition because each doctor has a unique career path that helps Earned get more examples of what’s going on in a person’s financial life, he said.

Meanwhile, Clendening estimates that the physician space asset management is about $13 billion in addressable market annually, and is still “wide open in terms of competition for this space.” He’s also considering expanding to other high-earning healthcare professionals, such as dentists, and physician families.

“Task one is to continue the work we’ve been doing within the physician industry,” Clendening said. “We will be moving deeper and deeper into the physician profession with the goal of over time becoming the only place a physician would go for any kind of advice related to their financial life.”