Headquartered in Downtown Brooklyn in New York City, Brooklyn Investment Group, LLC
(“BKLN”) is a Delaware Limited Liability Company (“LLC”) that was formed in July 2021. The LLC
is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Skopos Labs, Inc., a technology company founded in August 2016
as a Delaware corporation, and which does business as Brooklyn Artificial Intelligence Research
(“BAIR”).
BKLN is the investment advisory affiliate that leverages BAIR’s proprietary software and
algorithms including machine learning (“ML”) and natural language processing (“NLP”).
BKLN employs the BAIR technology through a royalty-free licensing arrangement. BKLN’s core
offering integrates (i) equities, and (ii) fixed-income exposures on its platform (the “Platform”),
which financial advisors may use to formulate for each client an overall asset allocation and the
underlying security/asset level implementations, and automatically rebalance the portfolio over
time.
Advisory Services
Brooklyn Investment Group is focused on serving as a bridge between independent financial
advisors and wealth management services. While select other investors, such as single-family
offices, may also have direct access to the Platform, BKLN’s main business centers around
working on a sub-advisory basis with our financial advisor partners (“Partner Financial Advisors”)
to help them scale their businesses and retain their own clients (“Clients of Partner Financial
Advisors”), which may include both individuals and entities. In other words, BKLN interacts with
both Partner Financial Advisors and directly with select investors (“Direct Investors”) – together
we refer to these groups as “Clients.” Clients of Partner Financial Advisors and Direct Investors
together are referred to as “End Investors”.
The BKLN platform (the Platform) facilitates the construction and management of portfolios of
listed U.S. equities, ADRs, ETFs, mutual funds, and fixed income securities. On the BKLN advisor
portal, Clients may use a search interface and build equity portfolios using the results. They are
able to propose themes (e.g., topics of interest) or company characteristics, and the Platform
provides a suggested index of stocks that seeks to meet the respective criteria. Clients have the
ability to review and accept suggestions or modify them. For example, a Client might type in an
area of interest like "hydropower," and machine learning models attempt to find companies that
generate revenue from hydropower-related business activities. The historical results are used to
show the Client a backtest simulation of the custom index created in this fashion, using an
interactive analysis tool as an additional evaluation resource. If the Client decides to invest in a
portfolio that follows the index, the mix of stocks is updated, and the underlying index is re-
optimized and rebalanced by BKLN in accordance with its agreement with the Client on an
automated basis going forward. Clients
may also utilize existing indexes and benchmarks in
connection with portfolio construction. This may result in additional fees and charges related to
such indices, including fees in which BKLN may participate, as described below.
Clients may deploy the Platform to invest in Separately Managed Accounts (SMAs).
Since the Platform does not provide comprehensive financial, tax planning or legal advice, BKLN
strongly recommends that Clients of Partner Financial Advisors seek the advice of their primary
financial advisors prior to investing.
BKLN’s fixed income investments include bond strategies managed by Nuveen Asset
Management LLC (“Nuveen”). TIAA Ventures, a Nuveen affiliated entity, is a non-controlling
investor in BAIR, BKLN’s parent company. The Nuveen strategies are designed to offer exposure
to income-producing securities and to balance Client-directed asset allocations by seeking to
diversify risk exposures. Certain fixed income investments may also include Exchange Traded
Funds (“ETFs”) and mutual funds.
Where permitted under applicable law, a Client may invest all or a portion of account assets in
one or more U.S. registered investment companies advised by Nuveen (“Affiliated Funds”),
posing a conflict of interest given Nuveen’s fees connected with such Affiliated Funds.
BKLN’s balanced portfolio solution, which combines equities and fixed income in a single
custodian account, features personalization and tax-loss harvesting across the portfolio. BKLN’s
technology and Platform may be modified, refined or expanded from time to time with a goal of
enhancing the Client experience.
BKLN has developed a new ADR index in collaboration with Nasdaq, Inc. This Nasdaq-Brooklyn
ADR index was designed specifically for direct indexing and tax-loss harvesting strategies
implemented in SMAs to address their greater liquidity requirements. The index leverages a
liquidity-adjusted weighting methodology to scale index weights down for ADRs with less liquidity.
While the index is licensed by Nasdaq, BKLN shares in the revenue derived from this index with
Nasdaq.
Client Suitability
The BKLN Platform is designed to provide systematic investment management services to entities
created under the state and federal laws of the United States and to individuals who are lawful
residents of the U.S.
In the cases where BKLN acts as a sub-advisor, BKLN relies on the primary financial advisor to
consult with the SMA holder regarding investment objectives and investing experience to
determine suitability for BKLN strategies. In the cases where BKLN acts as the primary advisor,
Clients will be asked to answer a series of questions for each SMA holder regarding investment
objectives and investing experience to determine the End Client’s suitability for BKLN strategies.
Assets Under Management
As of March 21, 2024, BKLN was managing $272.6 million in discretionary assets, principally on
a sub-advisory basis.