DALLAS — This story was originally published by our content partners at the Dallas Business Journal. Read the original version here.
A financial services company with an "anti-woke" reputation and former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy as a co-founder is moving its headquarters to Dallas in 2025.
Strive Enterprises Inc. expects most of its employees to relocate to Dallas from Columbus, Ohio, by the end of the first quarter, according to a Nov. 1 announcement. Strive also announced it has launched a wealth management business located in Dallas.
Strive, which is led by CEO Matt Cole, did not disclose how many employees it currently has or where its Dallas office will be located. Representatives for the firm declined to comment when reached by Dallas Business Journal.
Launched in 2022, Strive has more than $1.7 billion in assets under management. The company's asset management arm offers a suite of exchange-traded funds that it bills as "non-woke" and anti-ESG — corporate shorthand for environmental, social and governance policies. Big firms like BlackRock, Vanguard and State Street have incorporated ESG considerations into their investment strategies.
Strive's planned relocation to Dallas will be another addition to the North Texas financial scene and its burgeoning "Y'all Street" identity. Dallas-Fort Worth ranks as the second-biggest hub of financial workers in the nation, behind only New York, and an effort is underway to launch a Texas-based national stock exchange. Like Strive, some have pointed to the upcoming Texas Stock Exchange as being "anti-woke," though leaders of the stock exchange claim it will be apolitical.
Gov. Greg Abbott praised Strive's move as the latest example of how Texas "has become the home of capital in the United States."
"Y'all Street is growing rapidly in Dallas, and Strive's decision to relocate to Texas underscores our economic advantages that attract top businesses," Abbott said.
Strive's entry into the wealth management space comes after the firm closed a $30 million series B investment round in July. Cantor Fitzgerald LP, a New York-based investment firm with more than $13 billion in assets under management, led the funding round. Dallas-based Deason Capital Services LLC and Columbus, Ohio-based Narya Capital Management LLC, a venture capital firm co-founded by Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance, also participated in the financing.
A key part of Strive's wealth management business will include a focus on integrating Bitcoin into standard portfolios as a hedge against risks the firm expects to persist over the next several decades. It has said those include unsustainable global debt levels, rising fixed income yields, long-run inflationary pressures, persistent geopolitical pressures and potential restrictive monetary policy by the Federal Reserve.
Ramaswamy, who is majority owner of Strive, said in a statement "the moment is now ripe to launch a pro-capitalism" wealth management business.
"When Strive launched in 2022, nearly every major corporation bent the knee to ESG," Ramaswamy said. "Just two short years later, the national environment has changed dramatically, in no small part due to Strive's efforts."
Strive's new registered investment adviser will be led by industry veterans Gary Dorfman and Randol Curtis.
Dorfman, tapped as president, was most recently managing director for One Capital Management LLC, a California-based firm with more than $7 billion in assets under management. He also previously worked at Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. LLC and Beacon Pointe Wealth Advisors.
Curtis, hired as chief investment officer, previously worked at Morgan Stanley and ran his own firm, which was the predecessor to C-Quadrat Asset Management. Most recently, he served as deputy chief investment officer at One Capital Management.
Legal battle
The move also moves Strive closer to other "anti-woke" financiers. Ramaswamy previously invested in Dallas-based GloriFi, an anti-woke banking startup known legally as With Purpose Inc. That company shut down in 2022 after running out of funding and laying off its employees.
GloriFi filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy protection in 2023 and the case remains held up in court as the billionaires behind it fight over who was responsible for the company's demise.
Toby Neugebauer, co-founder and CEO of GloriFi, has alleged that Ramaswamy and other investors conspired to steal the company's trade secrets and intellectual property in order to start their own anti-woke financial companies, including Strive.
A hearing on the future of the case concluded Oct. 17. The judge is still formulating a decision.
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