Acorns (finance)

Acorns is a company that provides micro-investment services through its mobile and web application. Acorns was founded in 2012 by Jeff Cruttenden, Mark Dru, and Walter Cruttenden. Acorns aims to increase accessibility to several investment options that are previously only available for purchase with a large sum of money. The company is based in Irvine, California.

The mission of the company is to look after the financial best interests of the up-and-coming, beginning with the empowering step of micro-investing.

Acorns has three main services: Acorns Core, Acorns Later, and Acorns Spend. Acorns Core provides users with the ability to invest their spare change, as little as $5, into a portfolio of exchange-traded funds (ETFs). Acorns Later lets users make recurring investments for their individual retirement account (IRA). Unlike the first two, Acorns Spend focuses on allowing users to spend money by opening up a checking account in Acorns and using their issued debit cards.

Since its founding year, Acorns has managed to raise $207 million in capital through 8 funding rounds. The company’s most recent round was a Series E, collecting $105 million in January 2019. Acorns has received financing from 24 investors, with nine of them as lead investors. Past investors for Acorns have included Bain Capital Ventures, Comcast Ventures, NBCUniversal, TPG, and DST Global.