Tumelo’s Platform Turns Retail Investor Preferences Into Proxy Votes, Aims to Settle ESG Battles

How Tumelo Is Turning Retail Investor Wishes Into Proxy Votes

Most retail investors never cast a vote on the thousands of corporate ballots that arrive in the mail each year. Their money sits in mutual funds or ETFs, where the fund manager—not the end saver—controls the proxy. Georgia Stewart, a 27-year-old Cambridge graduate, founded Tumelo in the basement of a classmate’s parents’ house to change that. The Bristol-based startup gives individual investors a way to voice their environmental, social, and governance (ESG) preferences, then packages those signals for the fund manager, who can use them to cast actual ballots.

Tumelo’s model emerged from Stewart’s own frustrating campaign to get Cambridge’s endowment to divest from fossil fuels. She realized that simply selling shares often just transfers them to indifferent owners, while staying invested and voting could drive real change. The firm now employs 57 people and has raised $22 million from backers including musician Peter Gabriel. It has signed partnerships with Legal & General’s $1.6 trillion asset management arm, London-based Cushon, and the international arm of Fidelity Investments, and is working to announce its first U.S. partner.

Operationally, the setup is straightforward. An investor gives Tumelo read-only access to a brokerage account and picks from a menu of nine policy stances—such as an anti-carbon or worker-rights focus. Tumelo then anonymizes and aggregates the preferences, delivering a report that maps the collective wishes of a fund’s investors onto the specific proposals up for vote. The fund manager can use this data, often alongside guidance from proxy advisory firms, to cast a more representative ballot. For now, the votes are not binding; the fund manager retains final authority, but the direction of travel is toward more client influence.

The Proxy Voting Tug-of-War and Why Fund Managers Are Stepping Back

Why Fund Managers Are Eager to Pass the Proxy Torch

The timing for Tumelo’s platform is potent. Asset managers are caught between two vocal camps: one demanding aggressive climate and social action, the other accusing them of imposing a left-wing agenda on corporate America. BlackRock CEO Larry Fink has faced heat from both sides, with anti-ESG crusader Vivek Ramaswamy and several state treasurers condemning his firm’s activism. BlackRock’s response—letting institutional clients direct their own proxy votes—gives a blueprint that Tumelo can extend to retail money. Vanguard, too, has announced a pilot to give smaller investors a say, and Fidelity International is already a Tumelo partner. For fund managers, offering a voting feature through a third party like Tumelo removes them from the ideological crossfire: they can point to a data report showing exactly what their end investors wanted.

A Nascent Platform in the Shadow of Industry Giants

Tumelo’s biggest competitive threat is that the largest asset managers and brokers will build their own voting interfaces. If BlackRock perfects its internal system, it may have little need for an external startup. However, Stewart’s bet is that most asset managers will prefer a ready-made, white-label solution rather than spending millions on internal development. Early traction with Legal & General and Fidelity International gives Tumelo a credible reference list, and a pending U.S. deal could open a much larger market. Still, the firm is not yet profitable and must scale quickly before the window closes. The fact that no mandatory pass-through voting regulation exists in the U.S. or U.K. means Tumelo’s model depends on voluntary adoption by fund managers—a delicate balance of trust and convenience.

The Gap Between Wishes and Binding Ballots

A crucial limitation is that Tumelo’s reports are advisory, not binding. Fund managers retain ultimate voting discretion, which may disappoint users who believe their preferences directly control corporate elections. Stewart acknowledges that in the early days even the idea of pass-through voting would have been laughed out of boardrooms. Today, she sees a powerful shift toward shareholder democracy, with the potential for regulation or market pressure to eventually make flow-through voting standard. If that shift materializes, Tumelo’s early mover advantage and tech platform—1.6 million lines of code—could position it as an essential piece of infrastructure, much like proxy advisory firms Glass Lewis and ISS became embedded in the governance process.

What Asset Managers and Retail Investors Should Watch as Tumelo Grows

• For asset managers: assess whether a client-facing voting feature—powered by Tumelo or a comparable tool—can differentiate your products in a market where ESG preferences increasingly drive fund choice. The cost of building in-house may outweigh the speed of a white-label solution.
• For retail investors: if you want a say on corporate emissions, labor practices, or other ballot issues, look for brokerages and funds that adopt Tumelo-powered dashboards. Early adopters like Cushon and Legal & General’s digital platform show that such features are already appearing in pensions and ISAs.
• For Tumelo: the U.S. partnership will be pivotal. Securing a deal before BlackRock and Vanguard lock up the market with proprietary tools could determine whether Tumelo becomes the industry’s plumbing or a footnote. Profitability will likely depend on converting pilot partnerships into recurring, multi-year contracts.