Introduction
On Episode 7 of Bits and Atoms, Elias Can sits down with Nicholas Charles, Co-Founder and CEO of Danti - Digitising Generational Wealth, to explore the hidden challenges of preserving generational wealth. Drawing from his own family’s experience of losing significant wealth over generations, Nicholas shares how that personal story led him to study why 90% of family fortunes disappear within three generations. The conversation dives into the overlooked human side of wealth management, like communication, wisdom, and family dynamics, and how Danti aims to solve this through technology. By building a platform that captures not just financial assets but also the knowledge and experiences behind them, Danti is creating a new kind of operating system for wealthy families.
Interview
Elias Can: Hello and welcome to Bits and Atoms, the Grishin Robotics founder series. I'm your host, Elias Can, and today I’ve got Nicholas Charles, Co-Founder and CEO of Danti, joining me. To get started, Nicholas, would you mind sharing a quick intro about you and Danti?
Nicholas Charles: Essentially, my own family suffered what is known as “shirtleeves to shirtsleeves in three generations”. My great-grandfather was a multi-millionaire, but by the time my dad was eight years old it was completely gone. For me, listening to this story as a young teenager, it did not resonate that well with me. I ended up becoming a qualified accountant, tax advisor, and real estate investor, but I started seeing the same problem happening within my own client base. That got me interested in the realm of generational wealth. Why were families losing this money despite there being hundreds, if not thousands, of professional advisors out there?
I quickly realized that these professional advisers weren’t actually focusing on the real reasons why families fell, and I ended up writing two books on the subject. I got them both to number one on Amazon, but so what? The outreach was limited because the problem was I needed a global solution and the only way around that is with tech. Sadly, my background is not in tech, but luckily my good friend, and now Co-Founder, Madhavan Ramakrishnan bought and sold three tech businesses in the past and is a tech genius. He read my second book, Generational Wealth, and we came together to design, build, and distribute Danti.
Elias Can: Great intro, and I think the family history context leads a lot into what originally motivated you to become a founder. Anything else origin story-wise for you in terms of starting Danti?
Nicholas Charles: So as a professional by trade, becoming a founder in a startup massively took me out of my comfort zone. Professionals aren’t trained to be entrepreneurs, we’re trained to be experts within our field, minus taxation and property investing. But I realized it was a big problem and it was a problem that I had a passion to solve. I wanted to utilize technology because that’s the way the world is at the moment, I don’t need to explain to you what’s happening in the realm of tech and AI moving at the speed of light. Essentially, I wanted to provide a tech solution that helps effectively digitize and create an operating system for wealthy families to help them retain not just the financial capital but the wisdom behind it and that’s what we’re building today with Danti.
Elias Can: Very interesting, and to peek a little more behind the curtain for those of us who aren’t ultra-high-net-worth or have this family estate to inherit, how is this traditionally handled? I’m sure it looks a bit different over generations as more technology has been introduced, but what’s the standard today in terms of how estate and legacy are handled?
Nicholas Charles: It will be a bit crude of me to say it’s mishandled, but 90% of families will lose all their wealth within just three generations. That stat has not improved in the last 2,000-3,000 years of recorded wealth that we know about today looking at history. It’s fascinating to think about why humanity hasn’t learned from history, but I recently did a presentation comparing great empires to families and the similarities between the rise and fall of empires and families. Essentially, people fail to appreciate that their families consist of human beings and there’s a human element to wealth. Traditional advisors focus on what they do best, which is looking after the money because money doesn’t have personalities, it doesn’t have conflict…money is money. We are trained, and I say we because I am an accountant and tax professional, to look after tax liabilities and make clients more tax efficient. What do lawyers do, they help protect the wealth. What do asset managers do, they look after the assets under management. It’s all about managing and maintaining the financial capital.
What I quickly realized was there was nothing out there not just in terms of tech, but in terms of advice that actually looks after the people within the family. The beauty with AI today is that we’re building a solution that makes it possible for you to be able to store and share not just the financial capital but the human and intellectual capital as well. Guess what, the most successful families in the world, like the Rothschilds, the Rockefellers, the Waltons, that’s what they do. So does it not make sense to follow those that achieved generational financial success?
Elias Can: So beyond just the financial component, it’s also this wisdom or intellectual piece and doing a better job of carrying that forward with Danti.
Elias Can: I see the banner behind you with some of the pillars of generational wealth, and communication is on there. How does communication work on Danti, how have you set that up so that wisdom can be carried forward?
Nicholas Charles: Communication is actually the main reason why families will either succeed or fail, 60% of families fail because of poor communication and that distrust leads to emotional conflict. The great Warren Buffet once said if you can’t control your emotions, don’t ever expect to control money. It all starts with getting clarity over your wealth. Where is the paperwork? Who are the advisers? What are the structures? What do they look like? Where are they based? If you don’t have clarity, then how can you effectively communicate the wealth? That’s just the foundational level, start by having clarity over your assets.
That’s straightforward enough, but what about the rest of it? What about that wisdom behind the wealth, and what does that actually mean? The best way to explain it is with a simple case study. We’ve got a client who invested in a car park, brilliant. If they get run over by a bus today, their beneficiaries will inherit a car park that yields pretty much no income. What are they going to do with it? They will get rid of it. They don’t know anything or the wisdom behind that particular car park. But, in fact that car park is due to get a planning permission within the next 5-10 years and the value will 10x as a result of that planning permission. Unfortunately today only one person knows about this and that’s the main entrepreneur who runs the property portfolio. If he were to actually record that wisdom behind the car park, he’d say don’t sell it. He’d say here’s how you’re going to get the planning permission, the asset is going to go up by 10x. He’d say these are the people you need to speak to, these are the people you could sell to, and this is how much money you could expect to make…etc. None of this is ever recorded in something like a will, this wisdom will never get recorded in that type of document. So it’s either retained through word of mouth, or you have a digital system like Danti to record that within the asset itself.
That’s just one very simple example of capturing the wisdom behind the asset. Then you also have the actual wisdom of the founder or benefactor themselves; their lessons, experiences, expertise, and knowledge. We’ve all heard of ChatGPT, wouldn’t it be amazing to have a “LegacyGPT”? You can go into a platform and you can literally ask your great-grandfather questions like “I’m about to start a business, what advice would you give me”? Then it’s him and they’re telling you what to do based on their experiences of growing a multi-million dollar business. The value of that is huge, it’s not just about handing a check to the next generation, it’s about handing over a check and the understanding behind the financial capital. That is the key to retaining generational wealth, and it’s the direction we’re going with Danti.
Elias Can: Interesting, that way it gives both the holistic breadth and also deep specificity. You get to pick the brain of a family member who’s no longer with us.
Elias Can: I'm curious too when you're chatting with some of these families, maybe they have very established professionals they’ve used historically. What is the conversation with these families like when you’re sharing the capabilities of Danti with them?
Nicholas Charles: There’s huge interest in the wisdom capture aspect, which is part of why we’re looking to raise capital in order to fully build it because it is a key differentiator. Nearly every platform out there focuses on financial capital, and the number one tool that’s still used by our ideal client is a spreadsheet. As shocking as that sounds, people still utilize simplistic spreadsheets to control, manage, and maintain their wealth. Despite its limitations, lack of sharability, and difficulty to collaborate on, it can still be difficult to shift people and perceptions away from what they know despite where technology is taking us today. Having another tool that just focuses on finances is not sufficient, unless you’re looking at the mega single family offices who are worth $500M+, but that’s not our ideal client. By the way, even those families still use spreadsheets which I find amazing. We needed to find something that can compete and provide something that’s uniquely different to what’s already out there. The finance piece is important, but then you have to marry it with the wisdom behind it. Doing so truly looks at wealth, not just money, and retaining that wealth for the next generation beyond just financial capital.
Elias Can: Those dreaded spreadsheets, it’s hard to avoid them and they always find their way back into our lives in many different ways.
Elias Can: You mentioned raising capital, so switching gears to touch on this a little bit as well. What have been good ways for finding potential investors? How does the fundraising process look for you? Any practical tips or things in hindsight didn’t work as well?
Nicholas Charles: Getting a clear understanding of your pitch is very important. Also, never lose hope because it can be demoralizing raising money and it does get in the way of running the business from a time perspective. I don’t want to be too much of a downer, there are upsides. If you passionately believe in what it is that you’re trying to do, getting that messaging out there in a very clear manner is absolutely key. Initially, I thought I had that nailed. Luckily, I have some amazing advisors who told me they still didn’t quite understand what Danti is all about. That was a great learning for me, I had to go back to the drawing board to reshape my messaging of what we’re doing today and the bigger picture for Danti. The Grishin Robotics Accelerator was also a massive help for me, it really helped my pitch. I never envisioned doing a three minute pitch, fifteen minutes is so much easier than three minutes. That helped me get out of my comfort zone, and I got to connect with some amazing founders which I absolutely loved. I was also able to secure a very good investor from the Demo Day itself. You need small wins as a founder because it’s a very lonely world. Raising money, running a business, trying to get clients, staying on top of AI…there’s a lot to do but it’s fun.
No one’s really clocked the wisdom piece yet, which is great for me because the competition is still focusing on the original mindset of it’s all about the money. They look after assets under management, and they have some amazing tools but it pretty much does the same thing they were doing in the past. That still doesn’t solve the problem because it doesn’t solve how to retain wealth for multiple generations. It’s a lot more complicated than simply creating a very cool tool that helps you run the number more efficiently. There still isn’t a dominant player in this market and 90%+ of ideal customers are still using spreadsheets.
Elias Can: That fragmentation is a great way to find opportunity, there is no 900-pound gorilla in the room. You mentioned as well that fundraising takes time and effort, time away from actually running your business. I always have a lot of empathy for founders because I think fundraising turns into another full-time job with your existing full-time job of being CEO. It’s time-intensive, but yeah it can be good mentally to collect some of these small wins and gain momentum. It helps push forward and keep morale high.
Nicholas Charles: That's key. You need to park your ego, be prepared to be told that you’re wrong. Accept it, but also continue to believe in yourself. You don’t have to listen to everyone, you need to be firm, but at the same time have the ability to listen to advice even if it might go against your inner belief. It’s really a balancing act. You want to surround yourself with brilliant people. You want to take their advice but at the same time you’re the key driver of that particular business. You’re the one that has to make the decision and the buck stops with you.
Elias Can: I think that’s great practical advice for any founder listening; pick and choose who you lend your ear to, everyone has an opinion.
Nicholas Charles: 100%, and things change. What you originally thought was going to be the best thing might not be. In fact, you may find out quickly you were completely wrong from the outset and you have to twist and pivot. Listen to your customers and listen to your investors, that’s the feedback that will help form the direction of the business. Ultimately if you believe in yourself and what you’re doing, just keep going and don’t give up.
Elias Can: Thank you, Nicholas, for joining me on Bits and Atoms! It was great to have you, I’ll let you get back to building and fundraising.
Nicholas Charles: Thank you so much for having me!
9 out of 10 families lose their wealth within three generations. That number hasn't changed in 3,000 years. Danti - Digitising Generational Wealth is here to change it. The world's first Family Office Operating System that preserves not just financial capital, but the wisdom behind it. Because a fortune without understanding is just a countdown.
Grishin Robotics is a Silicon Valley-based VC firm focused on investing in early-stage companies in broader consumer categories. Grishin Robotics has invested in category-defining companies such as Ring (acquired by Amazon), Spin (acquired by Ford), Zipline, Starship, and many others.
