Every client already has a financial DNA: income, debt, savings, goals, risk capacity. DNA Invest is the operating framework that uncovers it and manages what happens next — through vital signs and plan health, so you measure client outcomes instead of fund performance.
We prepare clients for market uncertainty and invest for outcomes, targeting those few important things that determine them.
We concentrate on the biggest, most controllable drivers of long-term outcomes, the metrics that genuinely move the needle:
We access those drivers the most efficient way possible: the minimum number of funds needed to meet the investment objective. Fewer moving parts means a portfolio that is:
DNA Invest is the engine behind your advice. Smart Simplicity means every portfolio targets what actually drives returns — allocation, risk and cost — in a structure cheap enough to defend and simple enough that your client can explain what they own.
Clients don't retire on volatility. They retire on outcomes. So we define risk as the probability and severity of falling short of the goal — not volatility. Every portfolio decision impacts that probability.
The job is to move more of that shape into the green: a better chance of funding the goal, a shorter left tail if markets disappoint. Every client gets an Outcome Profile — the shape of their future, not a volatility score.
The biggest drag on real investor returns isn't fees or fund selection. It's behaviour. We do the diligence once, centrally — so you arrive with a vetted, evidenced process instead of building one under time pressure.
Scores appetite, capacity and horizon on the attooh! 5–20 scale — separating how a client feels about volatility from what their position can actually withstand — and matches one of six DNA profiles.
Funds are decomposed into their real underlying exposures (growth, rates, credit, inflation and currency) and compared on risk-adjusted contribution, not the strength of a category label or a headline return.
Blending two funds only reduces risk if they're exposed to different things. We test it directly, measuring a blend's volatility against a simple weighted average, so "why these two funds together?" has a concrete, evidenced answer.
If/then rules agreed while markets are calm — no income increase in a year the portfolio falls, for instance. When the moment comes, you are reminding a client of their own decision, not winning an argument.
Cadence is matched to each pairing's measured correlation and return differential rather than a blanket calendar rule, so when a client or a compliance review asks why a portfolio was or wasn't rebalanced, there's a specific answer.
Every fee, duration and allocation assumption is checked against a primary source or flagged provisional, with a dated record of how. If the advice is ever questioned, the file already exists.
The three letters of DNA are the three stages of the investment journey. Choose a step to see exactly what it does. The tools behind each step unlock once you register as an advisor.
Uncover where the client truly stands today and where they are going. This is the foundation the whole plan is built on.
Once the plan is live, keep it on track with the advisor always in the loop.
Each step feeds the next: Define sets the destination, Navigate builds the route, and Adapt keeps you on it. The markets are just a vehicle; your client's goals are the destination.
Each model blends institutionally-priced CIS funds, chosen by look-through analysis and tested for real diversification rather than trusted on a category label. Figures below are illustrative and confirmed per client in the Record of Advice; volatilities are 7-year blended.
| DNA model | Suits DNA profile | Growth assets | Horizon | Target | Volatility (7yr) | TER |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DNA IncomeCapital preservation & income | Conservative (5–7) | 0–10% | 1–2 yr | CPI +1% | 2.1% | 0.45% |
| DNA Moderate ConservativeStability with a little growth | Cautious (7–9) | ~30% | 2–3 yr | CPI +2% | 7.7% | 0.66% |
| DNA ModerateBalanced core holding | Balanced (9–12) | ~50% | 3–5 yr | CPI +3% | 9.4% | ~0.55% |
| DNA Moderate AggressiveGrowth with a safety rail · Reg 28 | Growth-Oriented (12–15) | ~65% | 5–7 yr | CPI +4% | 10.4% | 0.66% |
| DNA Aggressive EquityLong-horizon compounding | Aggressive (15–18) | ~97% | 7+ yr | CPI +5% | 11.8% | 0.37% |
| DNA Global AggressiveOffshore-tilted maximum growth | Aggressive (18–20) | ~98% | 10+ yr | CPI +5–6% | 12.6% | 0.44% |
Models use institutional fee classes, so TERs sit below retail fact-sheet figures. Growth bands and CPI+ targets are illustrative; each client's exact mandate is recorded in the Record of Advice, as the FAIS General Code requires.
Most reviews ask what the portfolio returned. Ours asks whether the client is more likely to fund their goal than a year ago. Plans are monitored continuously, and you hear from us the moment action is worth taking.
Market commentary, not advice. It tells the client what happened, not whether they are on track.
Every plan carries a Funding Momentum Score — one reading, like blood pressure, covering both health and direction of travel. A traffic light turns it into a reason for the next conversation.
Illustrative figures. Funding-momentum scoring is DNA Invest's internal engine; advisors see the plain-language reading and the alert, not the maths.
In retirement, how capital is drawn matters as much as how it's invested. An asset-dedication (‘bucket’) strategy means income never has to come out of a falling market — and preparation starts five years before the client retires.
A 4% starting withdrawal is conservative on purpose. It leaves room to lift income with inflation each year, and keeps exposure to growth assets high enough that the portfolio can still grow for a spouse and children.
Drawing that income straight from a growth portfolio is where plans break. A bad sequence in the first five years means selling units out of falling capital — and the damage compounds quietly for the next thirty. This is exactly the risk the simulator above quantifies.
Asset dedication protects income for the whole of retirement, not just year one. Two to five years of income sits in a stable fund and the monthly drawdown comes from there. The rest stays in the growth engine and compounds. Income is never drawn from a volatile portfolio.
Each anniversary sets the income increase, around CPI. Refilling the bucket is a decision, not a calendar rule: top up when growth has performed, hold off rather than sell growth assets into a falling market.
Bucket size follows the client's comfort: two years is more growth-oriented, five years more conservative. At a 4% withdrawal that's roughly 8% to 20% held in the income fund, with three years (12%) a sensible starting point.
Build the bucket in the five years before retirement, not on the day. Moving it all at once means selling growth assets at one moment — possibly a terrible one.
Switch 4% a year on the run-in instead, and the bucket is full on day one. A bad market in the retirement year is then survivable: three years of income is already banked, and the growth portion has time to recover.
Switching 4% a year rand-cost-averages this portion out of the market, so nothing has to be done in the final year except minor tweaks as personal circumstances unfold.
None of this is complexity for its own sake. It exists because the alternative (a plan with no pre-agreed responses, built on assumed fund labels and unverified fees) quietly accumulates errors that only surface when markets get difficult.
DNA Invest is built around the way your compliance officer already thinks, with suitability, disclosure and Treating Customers Fairly baked into every match, not bolted on afterwards.
Bring the platform into your practice under your own FSP licence and brand. Pricing is confirmed per practice, so book a demo for a tailored proposal.
Solo advisors and small practices building a consistent process
Multi-advisor FSPs wanting book-wide consistency & oversight
Networks and discretionary managers needing custom mandates
A fortnightly, plain-language newsletter carrying the same thinking you advise on. Send it under your own brand: it keeps clients engaged between reviews, and builds the behavioural discipline they will need long before a downturn tests it.
The most successful strategies don't start with the market; they start with the client. Looking inward at two pillars: the baseline and the destination.
Every strategy begins with a diagnosis, not a prediction. The six inputs (income, savings, debt, goals, risk profile and time horizon) that make a plan theirs alone.
Taking the defined Code and putting it to work: how to move through shifting markets without losing sight of the plan you just built.
DNA Invest works with attooh GCs, attooh IFAs and independent IFAs. Log in, or register and tell us which you are, and we'll set your account up accordingly.
Not an advisor? Everything above is free to read; this is the how-it-works view for financial advisors.
See the profiler, the six models and a sample Record of Advice in 30 minutes. Tell us about your practice and we'll tailor the walkthrough.