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Star Tech Analyst Dan Ives Leaves Wedbush to Launch AI-Focused Merchant Bank Yorkville Ives

July 15, 2026 at 18:45 EDT

Funding & M&A
Sales & Business

Dan Ives, one of Wall Street's most prominent artificial-intelligence bulls, has left Wedbush Securities after more than 25 years to co-found a new merchant bank centered on the AI boom. Announced on July 15, 2026, the firm—Yorkville Ives & Co.—is a partnership with Yorkville Securities that combines investment banking, equity research, institutional trading and principal investing, with a stated focus on artificial intelligence, technology, industrials, the energy transition and infrastructure.

July 15, 2026 · Yorkville Ives & Co.

Wall Street's Top AI Bull Builds a Bank Around the Boom

After more than 25 years, Dan Ives has left Wedbush to co-found Yorkville Ives & Co. — a "modern merchant bank" pairing banking, research, trading and principal investing, aimed squarely at the AI capital-formation cycle.

25+

Years at Wedbush before founding the new firm

Core services: banking, research, trading, principal investing

~30

AI-related names tracked by his IVES ETF index

The IVES ETF Track Record

Returns as of July 2026 — one-year return more than double the year-to-date figure

18.79%

Year-to-date
return

39.53%

One-year
return

The fund crossed $100M in assets within its first trading week (launched June 2025).

The thesis

"The fourth industrial revolution is here, and it needs a new kind of bank."

AI models Chips Data-center infrastructure Energy transition Industrials

The bull case

A genuine attempt to build a bank tuned to the scale and speed of AI capital formation — one of the largest funding cycles in decades, still in its early stages.

The skeptics

Is a single-theme "AI bank" an early signal of a market top? A boutique built on one trade may prove sensitive to its swings.

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