Forbes
According to paperwork filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission Wednesday morning, Alexa von Tobel—founder of LearnVest and a former Forbes 30 Under 30 and cover subject—is looking for $200 million to start a new venture capital fund she is calling Inspired Capital Partners. Citing SEC restrictions, von Tobel declined to discuss her plans, but if her recent angel investments are any indication, she appears to be sticking close to financial technology but with an emphasis on underserved populations.
Lately von Tobel has been investing through a vehicle called Blue Jumpsuit Ventures, which counts renters insurance startup Lemonade and debt management platform Tally among its portfolio companies. Most recently, she participated in a $12.8 million Series A investment in Propel, which makes an app used by over 1.5 million Americans to manage government benefits such as food stamps.
Von Tobel, now 34, dropped out of Harvard Business School in 2008 to start LearnVest, which started as a free website with personal finance content for women before quickly expanding into financial planning services. The idea was to connect clients with human financial planners through an interactive portal. Taking out the need for face-to-face interaction, the thinking went, would significantly reduce costs and make planning available to a wider audience.
By 2015 around 10,000 people were paying for planning directly, with another 25,000 receiving the service through a financial education program sold to employers. In March of that year Northwestern Mutual bought the company for around $350 million, in a bid from the 160-year-old insurance and financial planning giant to reach a younger audience and become more tech savvy. Von Tobel worked at Northwestern Mutual, most recently as chief innovation officer, until announcing her departure last week. LearnVest’s planning services were shut down in May of last year, though the brand is still publishing content.
Von Tobel appeared on the August 2014 cover of Forbes as a part of a story chronicling the ways Millennials’ attitudes toward money were shaping new financial management tools. Some of the other companies featured, such as roboadvisor Betterment, live on independently. But LearnVest is emblematic of the way many of fintech companies founded in the wake of the financial crisis have had an influence on consumers beyond their sometimes small user bases. Northwestern Mutual has folded LearnVest’s technology into its own, investment giants including Vanguard and Fidelity have launched robo platforms, and consumers are increasingly demanding affordable financial tools.
“It’s beyond the tipping point,” says von Tobel of her generation in 2014. “[We] are the decision makers, the influencers.”