Foundry is the new guise of the former Auckland-based Investment Research Group Portfolio business, which was purchased by Macrocarpa Holdings, a subsidiary of The Business Bakery for $500,000 in late May.

Foundry senior investment adviser Stephen Rogers - who previously held the same role at IRG Portfolio - and former IRG director Grant Baker purchased the business with Baker's business partners Geoff Ross and Stephen Sinclair. Baker, Ross and Sinclair are the trio behind The Business Bakery and previously 42 Below vodka.

Rogers says the team bring a fresh perspective to financial services and that the firm is built around investment performance, not operating on a brokerage basis. Its investment committee is independently chaired by Louis Boulanger.

"If the clients do well, we do well," Rogers says.

He says Foundry intends to grow organically, but is also keen to bring other companies on board. It has already been in discussions with two advisory firms with similar philosophies that look likely to join up.

With a growth target "well north" of $500 million funds under management - it is currently at around $70 million - Foundry has "plenty of capital to buy the right acquisitions should they be available," Rogers says.

He says Foundry intends to grow the business with a different approach to what has been tried previously.

"Largely the industry is very much a cottage industry and eventually someone is going to institutionalise that and be very successful in the process. Certainly that is what our aim is."