How to take a FinTech through an IPO
Raiz Invest (previously Acorns Australia) launched in 2016, quickly amassing close to one million users.
George Lucas, CEO is one of the more experienced founders in the FinTech NextGen series. Many CEO’s in financial services struggle to relate to the Millennial market, not so George and his Raiz Invest team. Discover his secrets in this interview with Dexter Cousins of Tier One People.
How does Raiz Invest work?
George:Raiz Invest is a micro investing platform, enabling users to invest in the markets with as little as five dollars all through an app on your mobile phone. Put simply, we enable users to save in the background of life. Raiz educates a potential investor setting aside the misconception that investing and financial planning is too difficult to get involved in.
We have created multiple ways for our users to save and invest. The first way is through a lump sum investment, you can deposit money into the investment account at any time. The second way is to set up a savings plan or a recurring investment, where an automatic payment goes into the account. The third way is the round up feature which we have become well known for.
The round up feature tracks your spending on your debit cards, bank accounts, et cetera and rounds up transactions to the nearest dollar. If you spend $3.50 on a coffee, 50 cents is invested into your Raiz account. People can start saving without having to think about or setting savings goals. It just happens in the background as you get on with life.
How was the idea for Raiz born?
George: The traditional way of investing requires 5000 dollars to get started. You need to complete a load of forms, pay for advice, find a broker. We wanted to simplify the process, reduce the inertia people experience when making investment decisions and make saving and investing super simple.
The plan from day one was to create something where a customer could invest as little as five dollars, sign up, in minutes through a mobile phone and access their savings whenever they wanted.
Back in 2014 we started explaining the concept to people and felt we had something special. Once people began registering for the pre-beta testing, the feedback we received was even more encouraging. People loved being able to invest for as little as five dollars. The ability to link accounts, round up spending and invest automatically resonated particularly with the millennial generation.
We officially launched in February 2016 in Australia, as Acorns.
To read more, please click on the link below….
Source: George Lucas – Raiz Invest | How to take a FinTech through an IPO
