Most companies reward consumers for what they spend, but a local fintech startup wants to reward people for the money they save.
Milwaukee-based Investii, Inc. developed a cloud-based software platform that helps people visualize all of their finances in one place, shift funds across multiple accounts and earn rewards points for moving money into savings vehicles.
The startup targets young professionals and college students who are just learning to manage their own finances and who know they should save but aren’t sure how much or how often, said Nishant Deshpande, Investii co-founder and chief executive officer.
Investii not only tells users the amount they can afford to save each month, but it also breaks down how much of a user’s monthly surplus should be allocated to a variety of savings vehicles, including investment brokerage accounts. Investii is also the only platform on the market that allows people to move money into different account types without having to access multiple mobile apps, Deshpande added.
“The number one reason people don’t save is because they don’t know how much to save,” Deshpande said. “We’re really just removing that thinking and stress out of saving.”
Users can also earn points that are redeemable for cash back as they increase their “Investii savings score,” a metric Investii’s founders say should be used to evaluate a borrower’s ability to pay back loans.
“Fundamentally, we believe savings habits are the best predictor of credit worthiness, certainly more so than your spending habits,” said Bryan Stave, Investii co-founder and chief growth officer.
The Investii savings score is based on how consistently a user saves, the amount saved, liquidity ratio and the diversification of a user’s savings across multiple savings vehicles.
Investii’s next step is to prove its concept by allowing users to apply for loans through its platform and guarantee a portion of that loan based on their Investii savings score, Deshpande said.
“That would decrease their value at risk to the lender, which would in turn decrease their interest rate and would give us another data point for proving the validity of this score,” Deshpande said.
Investii is integrated with more than 17,000 financial institutions across the country. A user’s data on Investii is secured through encryption and the platform is powered by Plaid, which is used by other finance apps like Venmo, Robinhood and Acorns.
Location: Milwaukee
Founders: Nishant Deshpande and Bryan Stave
Founded: 2020
Product: Web-based platform to track finances.
Website: investii.com
Employees: 8
Goal: Help users identify how much they can afford to save each month.
Experience: Deshpande worked for BMO Financial Group. Stave worked at Epic and Ardent Health Services.
