Wealthsimple Financial Inc., a Toronto-based robo-advisor, has acquired Canadian ShareOwner Investments Inc. (ShareOwner), a discount brokerage firm that is also in Toronto.

The acquisition will help Wealthsimple to work more closely with financial advisors, says Michael Katchen, CEO and founder of Wealthsimple, as ShareOwner’s platform will allow the robo-advisor to build more than just model portfolios.

“It certainly builds more flexibility into the offering that we can create and work with advisors to deliver to their clients,” says Katchen. “Certainly, we hope this takes us one step closer and makes it even more compelling for the advisor community to work together.”

Wealthsimple will be able to broaden out its offering to advisors and clients alike because it’s bringing many back-office operations in-house through ShareOwner’s discount brokerage platform. For example, whereas Wealthsimple has had to outsource certain back-office functions such as trade execution, custody and account approval to a third-party brokerage, now it will be able to do those things on its own — and at a much faster pace.

“We’re able to make a difference and use technology to simplify every element of that experience for our clients,” Katchen says.

With the acquisition, Wealthsimple now owns one of 14 discount brokerages in Canada. Following the completion of the deal, Wealthsimple will have more than 10,000 clients and $400 million in assets under management.

For Bruce Seago, ShareOwner’s CEO, a merger with Wealthsimple made sense because of what he sees as the shared mission of the two online advice platform: “We’re both focused on delivering a very automated service that delivers a top-notch client experience and comes with low fees.”

While Wealthsimple will make use of ShareOwner’s back-office operations, ShareOwner will be taking advantage of Wealthsimple’s tech experience.

“We have plans to deliver new products and services within the discount brokerage division,” says Seago. “We’ll be able to leverage Wealthsimple’s strong base of software engineers to do that.”