Acorns Adds Powerhouse Veterans to Board in Wake of Record Growth

IRVINE, Calif., April 4, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Acorns, the leading micro-investing app with more than 1.6 million investment accounts, today announced two additions to its Board whose experience will help deliver on the firm's mission of looking after the financial best interests of the up-and-coming. Adam Nash, former CEO of Wealthfront, will join the Board of Directors; and, Shlomo Benartzi, professor and co-chair of the Behavioral Decision-Making Group at UCLA, will join as a Board Member.

"Acorns is working to bring together the best thinkers – from behavioral economists to technology and finance experts – to make it even more effortless to save, spend responsibly and grow wealth over time," said Noah Kerner, CEO of Acorns.

One of the central tenets of the company's mission statement is putting customers and their financial best interests first. Acorns focuses intensely on understanding what drives saving, investing and spending behaviors so that it can design the best product to meet its customers evolving needs. This is particularly salient when 69% of Americans don't have a $1,000 emergency fund.

"The opportunity to help the up-and-coming save is immense," said Nash. "And Acorns genuinely cares about looking after their financial best interests."

"The best way to help this population create solid financial futures is by understanding their current spending and saving habits and how they interact with the Acorns app," said Benartzi, "so that we make saving money as easy as spending money."

Benartzi has been a leader in psychology and economic research aimed at helping people make better decisions. He and Richard Thaler pioneered the Save More Tomorrow program (SMarT), a behavioral prescription designed to help individuals increase their savings rates gradually over time. The program is now offered by more than half of U.S. retirement plans.

Nash has been an advocate for the development of innovative and user-friendly consumer products in Silicon Valley for over 20 years. Most recently, as the President & CEO of Wealthfront, Nash helped usher in a new category of automated investment services. Prior to Wealthfront, Nash served as an executive-in-residence at Greylock Partners. Before Greylock, Nash served as Vice President of Product Management at LinkedIn, held leadership roles at eBay, and was a software engineer at Apple.

The addition of Nash and Benartzi will help Acorns deepen its behavioral insights and user experience capabilities to drive its growth strategy. The company has added a record 300,000 new investment accounts since the beginning of 2017.  

For more information, please visit www.acorns.com.

About Acorns
Acorns is the leading micro investing app in the U.S. that helps make big decisions small. It's easy-to-use, mobile-first technology makes it simple for anyone to invest. Acorns allows users to automatically invest in a low-cost, diversified portfolio of exchange-traded funds offered by some of the world's top asset managers (including Vanguard and Blackrock). You can access Acorns simply and easily via the app for iPhone, Android or desktop. Customers grow their wealth in one of five portfolios constructed with help from world-renowned Nobel Laureate economist Dr. Harry Markowitz. Acorns smart portfolio algorithms automatically work in the background of life, helping users build wealth naturally, pennies at a time. From Acorns mighty oaks do grow. To invest with Acorns, visit iTunes, Google Play, or Acorns.

SOURCE Acorns