About us
VIAlab is a startup that uses generative AI to produce the revolutionary VIA3 score, quantifying sustainability alongside financial performance bringing visiabiliy across the entire supply chain of capital.
Our mission is to create change by showing that you can make money while investing sustainably.
Focus on the supply chain of capital
Our vision is to integrate VIA3 across the entire capital flow, from retail platforms like Robinhood and Schwab, to institutional portfolio management tools like
Enfusion and Allvue.
VIA3 Score
Based on five dimensions: Values, Impact, Analysis, Activism, Alignment (VIA3) plus financial performance, our AI assesses the entire investment chain—from asset owners to managers and across asset classes—providing sustainability transparency at a glance.
Investor Compass
Enabling retail and institutional investors to define their values while focusing on returns (with planned integration into platforms like Robinhood and Schwab)
COMING SOON
Portfolio Builder
Helps retail users, financial advisors, and asset managers construct optimal portfolios based on the Investor Compass profile. Offered in a Lite and Enterprise version that integrates sustainability and return metrics into institutional software like Enfusion and Allvue for asset managers and family offices.
COMING SOON
VIA3
VIA3 delivers at-a-glance, actionable insights giving investors instant visibility to the real sustainability and financial return of a company or fund.
This multi-dimensional score (categorized by investment strategy) will be embedded alongside stock tickers on platforms like Robinhood and Schwab, empowering investors to make informed decisions.
Investor Portal
A focus on financial return and sustainability.
The VIAlab investor portal allows anyone to research existing stocks, funds, and bonds. Including 401k and pension plans.
- Create an account and upload your portfolio.
- Instant at-a-glance sustainability
and financial return for every TICKER. - Engage with Janet, your personal AI assistant.
- Research funds and companies.
- Answers linked with citations, materiality, reliability, and rationales.
LAUNCHING SOON
Why Choose Us
Our Mission is to create change by showing that you can make money while investing sustainably.
What are you waiting for?
Ready to take the next step? Let’s bring your transparancy and sustainability to your investments while making money! Explore how you can be the hero and part of the solution. Together, we’ll make it happen.
Our team
VIAlab merges profound expertise in sustainability and finance with decades of AI and technology leadership.
The VIA3 score was first conceived by Chad Spitler, a former BlackRock executive and founder of the respected ESG consultancy Third Economy in 2019. While his VIA3 system showed clear promise and accuracy in beta tests, the initial manual approach—costing $10,000 and months of analyst work per security—faced commercial headwinds and was only able to be used in product development.
Then, on November 30, 2022 and the launch of ChatGPT, Generative AI emerged as a transformative catalyst. Bryan Hughes, a 39-year technology leader, GenAI specialist, and trusted advisor to Chad for ten years, envisioned its potential. He saw that GenAI could finally make the robust VIA3 methodology scalable and highly cost-effective (pennies per score). This realization was the impetus for VIAlab cofounded by Bryan and Chad, strategically spun off to leverage this technological leap and deliver VIA3’s groundbreaking insights to the entire market.
Bryan Hughes
CEO/CTO/Co=Founder
35+ years in technology, 2 decades in startups, founded 3 companies as CEO and CTO, sold one to Nokia. Expert in generative AI. Founding member of the NVidia Jetson AI Lab Research Group.
Chad Spitler
CEO/Co-founder
25+ years in finance, built BlackRock’s sustainability and stewardship teams and advised the largest investors in the world on sustainability. Named 100 most influential people in governance by NACD. Dean’s Advisory Board University of Michigan SEAS.
Balazs Ree
Principal Engineer/co-founder
25+ years in enterprise web development, expert in robust application development, and long-term collaborator with Bryan.
Abbe Billings
Senior Advisor
16+ years in corporate governance & sustainability (ex-BlackRock), 30 years in sales enablement and client engagement.
Dr. Todd Hort
Yale School of Management
principal Advisor
Yale School of Management Metrics and standards for measuring the environmental impacts of fixed income investment products such as green bonds; underlying data for environmental, social and governance (ESG) that demonstrably drive corporate growth and improvement in equity value; and underwriting more sustainable insurance products – particularly around the means to measure effective climate adaptation
Dr. Joe Árvai
Director, Wrigley Institute, USC.
principal Advisor
Senior Researcher at the Decision Science Research Institute in Eugene, OR, and an Adjunct Professor in Engineering and Public Policy at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, PA. Also science advisor to the administrator of the United States Environmental Protection Agency; and member of the National Academies of Sciences’ Board on Atmospheric Science and Climate.
Explore Our Blog
ESG Is Dead, Long Live ESG
This has become a very common cry with many[…]