July 27, 2010

LearnVest.com Launches Financial Bootcamp Programs to Provide Women with the Tools to Get Fiscally Fit

NEW YORK — LearnVest, (www.LearnVest.com) an award-winning personal finance website for women, today announced the launch of three new comprehensive online programs: Financial Basics Bootcamp, Cut Your Costs Bootcamp, and Investing Bootcamp.  Each bootcamp program will be accessible on-demand and packed with crucial information and important daily tasks to help users get organized and accomplish their financial goals.

“We make approximately 6-10 financial decisions a day, yet there’s no formal education when it comes to our money,” said Alexa von Tobel, CEO and founder of LearnVest. “We are so excited to launch these fun and hip programs to provide women with trusted tools, guidance and expertise that enable them to take better control of their finances.”

Financial Basics Bootcamp was first launched in January 2010 as a structured, three-week program with a fixed start-date. Financial Basics Bootcamp promises to whip users into top financial shape through a number of easy action steps that take just minutes a day. After a tremendous response from users, the program ran again in mid-February. LearnVest will now offer the Financial Basics Bootcamp on-demand, allowing users to sign up at any point in time and take control of their finances right away.

LearnVest will also debut Investing Bootcamp, a brand new rigorous three-week e-mail program, available on-demand, designed to teach women how to make smart investing decisions and properly allocate their portfolios. Whether users are interested in allocating their IRA or understanding the best funds for a savings goal ten years away, Investing Bootcamp provides structured steps to help users navigate through the complicated web of investing. The Investing Bootcamp is premium content written and vetted by trusted investment professionals and will be available for $7.99—less than a dollar a day, cheaper than a book, and it all saves to your LearnVest profile!

“Why focus on investing?  The statistics speak for themselves,” said Alexa von Tobel. “Two-thirds of single women in the United States do not have an IRA, and 38% of 30-55 year old women are worried they will live at or near the poverty level because they cannot adequately save for retirement.  These statistics need to change, and we will change them.”

In addition, LearnVest will launch a free Cut Your Costs Bootcamp, a free daily e-mail program, available on-demand, that walks users through the best ways to trim their home budget and rethink unnecessary expenditures room by room. LearnVest experts will show users that living beneath their means doesn’t mean they need to cut out all the creature comforts of home, but it does mean spending less than they make. Bootcamp topics range from ways to save on energy bills to exactly how to negotiate a lower cable bill. LearnVest is challenging all those who go through bootcamp to cut more than $500 a year and invest that money instead.

About LearnVest

LearnVest is the leading personal finance website for women. Since its debut as a TechCrunch50 Company in September 2009, LearnVest has helped over half a million women gain control of their finances. Through LearnVest.com, LearnVest provides trusted content, tools, and community to help women tackle their finances at each stage of life. These tools include Financial Checklists, a customized Action Plan, a Budgeting Tool, Financial Bootcamps, and carefully vetted recommendations to help users find the financial accounts they need. LearnVest educates subscribers via the “LearnVest Daily,” a bite-size email guide of hip lifestyle tips for living on a budget.  LearnVest’s Board of Advisors includes Lee Barba (Former CEO, Investools/thinkorswim), Ann Kaplan (Former Partner, Goldman Sachs), Catherine Levene (Former CEO, DailyCandy), and Betsy Morgan (Former CEO, The Huffington Post). For more information about LearnVest, please visit www.learnvest.com.

April 1, 2010

LearnVest.com Closes $4.5M Equity Investment

Women’s Personal Finance Site Receives Backing from Accel Partners

NEW YORK — To kick off Financial Literacy Month, LearnVest Inc. (www.LearnVest.com), an award-winning personal finance website for women, announced today that it closed a Series A round of funding for $4.5 million, led by Accel Partners. LearnVest plans to use the funding to meet the strong demand for its current trusted information and tools, expand on its offerings, and build on the company’s recent success. Lead investors from the company’s seed financing in September 2009 also invested in this round, including Richmond Management, Rose Tech Ventures, and principals of Circle Financial Group.

LearnVest is the leading independent personal finance website targeting the 70 million women who control over 80% of all consumer spending in the United States.  Since its debut as a TechCrunch50 Company in September 2009, LearnVest has helped tens of thousands of women gain control of their finances. Through LearnVest.com, LearnVest provides trusted content and tools to help women tackle their finances at each stage of life. These tools include Financial Checklists, a customized Action Plan, a Budgeting Tool, a 20-day Financial Resolution Bootcamp, and carefully vetted recommendations to help users find the financial accounts they need. LearnVest educates subscribers via the “LearnVest Daily,” a bite-size email guide of hip lifestyle tips for living on a budget.

LearnVest was first conceptualized by Alexa von Tobel in 2006, as she graduated from college. After 18 years of schooling, Alexa realized she had never had a moment of formal education on personal finance. She quickly found she wasn’t alone, as few high schools, colleges, and graduate schools across the nation teach this subject. Alexa searched for reliable financial guidance and consistently came up overwhelmed or disappointed. Thus, the LearnVest mission was born – to make trusted personal financial information accessible to millions of women.

“Personal finance can be daunting, and it is critical for women to have a roadmap for personal financial independence, now more than ever,” said Alexa von Tobel, CEO and founder of LearnVest. “We are thrilled to work with Theresia Gouw Ranzetta and Accel Partners, as they are recognized leaders in identifying and building social media platforms and online education companies. Valued support like this allows us to continue to provide women with unparalleled guidance and expertise.”

Accel Partners is a leading venture capital and growth equity firm specializing in groundbreaking companies across multiple industries, including internet, digital media, software, communications, and clean technology. Accel has backed market leaders that have sparked significant revolutions in their categories, such as Facebook, Glam Media, Etsy, Kayak, Admob, Trulia, Groupon, RealNetworks, UUNet, MetroPCS, BBN, Arrowpoint, Macromedia, XenSource, Walmart.com, Zimbra, and many others.

“We have been very impressed with LearnVest, the leading pioneer in creating smart, fun financial content targeting a huge and largely untapped audience: financially independent women,” said Theresia Gouw Ranzetta, Accel Partners’ lead investor and new LearnVest advisory board member. “Accel has helped build companies targeting specific vertical audiences such as Facebook, Glam Media and Trulia into global leaders, and we see that same potential in LearnVest. We’re very excited to be a part of the LearnVest family as they achieve new heights in the near future.”

About LearnVest

LearnVest is an independent, interactive, personal finance platform that fills the gap between one-size-fits-all, overwhelming books and expensive financial advisors; LearnVest walks users through personal financial issues with a step-by-step approach, using dynamic LearnVest Checklists to tackle over 30 financial life events. Users can track their progress through customized profiles and reference a complete set of Financial Basics. LearnVest’s Board of Advisors includes Lee Barba (Former CEO, Investools/thinkorswim), Ann Kaplan (Former Partner, Goldman Sachs), Catherine Levene (Former CEO, DailyCandy), and Betsy Morgan (Former CEO, The Huffington Post). For more information about LearnVest, please visit http://www.learnvest.com.

About Accel Partners

Founded in 1983, Accel Partners has a long history of excellence and innovation in the global venture and growth equity business. Accel today invests globally using dedicated teams and market-specific strategies for local geographies, with offices in Palo Alto, California; London, UK; and Bangalore, India; as well as in China via the IDG-Accel Partnership. 

With over $6 billion under management, Accel has helped entrepreneurs build over 300 successful category-defining companies, including Actuate, Admob, Alfresco, AMCC, Arrowpoint, Baidu, BBN, Brightcove, ComScore, Etsy, Facebook,  Gameforge, Glam Media, Groupon, Imperva, Infinera, Interwoven, JBoss, Kayak, Macromedia, metroPCS, Playfish, Polycom/PictureTel, Portal Software, QlikTech, Rapt, Real Networks, Riverbed, Sohu.com, UUNet, Veritas, Walmart.com, Webroot, XenSource, and Zimbra. For more information, visit the Accel Partners at http://www.facebook.com/Accel.

MEDIA CONTACTS:

LearnVest.com
Sunshine, Sachs & Associates
Jessica Berger
212.691.2900/berger@sunshinesachs.com

Accel Partners
Keirsten Lampkin
Accel Partners
klampkin@accel.com
650-330-5453

February 10, 2010

LearnVest Partners with GirlsGuideTo.com to Help Women Everywhere Take Control of Their Finances

LearnVest (www.LearnVest.com), an award-winning personal finance website for women, today announced that it has joined forces with GirlsGuideTo (www.GirlsGuideTo.com) in a partnership that will help GirlsGuideTo’s community of over 140,000 women gain control of their finances. GirlsGuideTo is the “ladies only” guide to the 20-something life that covers everything, including the good, bad, ugly and taboo.

On February 15th, LearnVest will team up with GirlsGuideTo.com to re-launch LearnVest Financial Bootcamp, a free, comprehensive program designed to help women everywhere get their finances in shape. LearnVest will run select content on GirlsGuideTo.com and Facebook.com/GirlsGuideTo, which will include a co-branded version of the LearnVest Financial Bootcamp. LearnVest will deliver daily actionable, personal finance tips to help GirlsGuideTo’s 140,000 women better manage their money. GirlsGuideTo users will be able to ask their own financial questions, share their favorite articles with friends, save financial tips to their “personal online guide” and participate in forums. LearnVest Bootcamp touches on a wide range of issues relating to personal finances, from the importance of your credit score to how to open an IRA.

Due to the overwhelmingly positive response from the thousands of women who joined the original launch of LearnVest’s Financial Resolution Bootcamp in January, LearnVest decided to run the program again. The Bootcamp will take place from February 15th through March 15th.

“LearnVest Bootcamp has proved to be a huge success. We’ve seen the most powerful user engagement we could hope for; we have users writing in daily to share their personal stories—from how they are tackling their debt to how LearnVest has helped them create a budget they can stick to,” said LearnVest CEO, Alexa von Tobel.

GirlsGuideTo is thrilled about this partnership: “We are delighted to welcome LearnVest.com into our community and to introduce our members to LearnVest’s powerful personal finance management tools,” said Brette Borow, CEO and Co-Founder of GirlsGuideTo. “No one said being a woman was easy and it has always been our goal to give young women the reassurance that they are not alone. By combining our efforts with LearnVest, we will provide our community with incredibly important information regarding personal finances that impact women everyday.”

LearnVest and GirlsGuideTo.com will share articles and other educational content, and allow users to navigate easily between websites.

For more information about LearnVest.com, please visit www.LearnVest.com.

About LearnVest

LearnVest is an interactive personal finance tool that fills the gap between impersonal, overwhelming books and expensive financial advisors. LearnVest walks users through personal financial issues step-by-step via dynamic LearnVest Checklists to tackle financial life events. Users can track their progress through their customized profiles and reference a complete set of Financial Basics. LearnVest has key partnerships with Bankrate and CreditKarma, among others.

To date, the company has raised $1.1 million in seed funding from venture and angel investors. LearnVest’s investors include Richmond Management, Circle Financial Group, and Rose Tech Ventures. In addition, the Board of Advisors includes several prominent professionals with executive-level experience at Goldman Sachs, Intuit, Apple, Morgan Stanley, Random House, Daily Candy, and other globally-recognized organizations. For more information about LearnVest, please visit http://www.learnvest.com.

About GirlsGuideTo.com

GirlsGuideTo.com is a “ladies-only” guide to the 20-something lifestyle. It covers everything, from the good, bad, and ugly, to the taboo. It is a girl’s online handbook, personal journal, and little black book rolled into one and is accessible 24/7. GirlsGuideTo empowers women to find the best in news, tips and advice about the stuff they actually care about. It’s also the place for women to share their stories, ask their questions and speak up about what is on their minds. GirlsGuideTo has been widely recognized for its innovative use of Facebook Connect. It was also named one of the Top 5 Facebook fan pages in the world by Mashable.com in the 2009 Open Web Awards. The community’s over 140,000 members can be found at http://Facebook.com/GirlsGuideTo and http://GirlsGuideTo.com.

January 6, 2010

LearnVest Welcomes Former CEO of thinkorswim Group to Board of Directors

TechCrunch 50 Finalist Makes Personal Finance Fun and Accessible

NEW YORK–(BUSINESS WIRE)–LearnVest, (www.LearnVest.com) an award-winning personal finance website for women, today announced that Lee Barba, the former Chairman and CEO of thinkorswim Group Inc., has joined LearnVest’s Board as the third member of the Board of Directors. The current Board of Directors includes LearnVest CEO and founder, Alexa von Tobel, and former Goldman Sachs partner and personal finance expert, Ann Kaplan.

LearnVest Welcomes Lee Barba to Board of Directors
LearnVest is excited to welcome Lee Barba as the third member of the Board of Directors. Barba is the former Chairman and CEO of thinkorswim Group Inc., a market leader in providing integrated investor education and online brokerage services to the self-directed investor, which was acquired by TD Ameritrade for $606 million earlier this year. To date, thinkorswim, through its Investools subsidiary, has taught over 450,000 students to become self-directed investors while growing its award winning online brokerage business to over 100,000 funded accounts serving active traders in the options, stock, futures and forex markets. Barba’s experience in building and operating a large scale, publicly traded financial services education and brokerage company will be invaluable to the LearnVest team.

LearnVest partners with Experian®
For its launch, LearnVest has partnered with ProtectMyID.com™, Experian’s Web site which offers a multilayered identity theft detection, protection and fraud resolution product.

LearnVest has been careful to select a company partner that believes in its mission. “ProtectMyID.com chose to partner with LearnVest because the company shares our vision of empowering consumers,” said Jennifer Leuer, general manager of ProtectMyID.com. “When people take charge of their financial situations, it’s important for them to also protect themselves from dangers like identity theft, and that is precisely what we do.”

About LearnVest
LearnVest is an interactive, personal finance tool that fills the gap between impersonal, overwhelming books and expensive financial advisers. LearnVest walks users through personal financial issues step by step via dynamic LearnVest Checklists to tackle financial life events. Users can track their progress by using customized profiles, and they have access to a complete set of Financial Basics for reference. LearnVest has key partnerships with Bankrate and CreditKarma, among others.

To date, the company has raised $1.1 million in seed funding from venture and angel investors. LearnVest’s investors include Richmond Management, Circle Financial Group, and Rose Tech Ventures. In addition, the Board of Advisors includes several prominent professionals with executive-level experience at Goldman Sachs, Intuit, Apple, Morgan Stanley, Random House, Daily Candy, and other globally-recognized organizations. For more information about LearnVest, please visit www.LearnVest.com.

About ProtectMyID.com
ProtectMyID.com is a leading, full-service provider of identity theft detection, protection and fraud resolution. ProtectMyID.com offers comprehensive identity theft protection products supported by experienced fraud resolution agents who deliver personal attention that customers can rely on. ProtectMyID.com is a Website owned by ConsumerInfo.com Inc., an Experian company. For more information about how ProtectMyID.com helps consumers protect themselves against identity theft, please visit ProtectMyID.com.

About Experian
Experian is the leading global information services company, providing data and analytical tools to clients in more than 65 countries. The company helps businesses manage credit risk, prevent fraud, target marketing offers and automate decision-making. Experian also helps individuals check their credit report and credit score and protect against identity theft. Experian plc is listed on the London Stock Exchange (EXPN) and is a constituent of the FTSE 100 index. Total revenue for the year ended March 31, 2009, was $3.9 billion. Experian employs approximately 15,000 people in 40 countries and has its corporate headquarters in Dublin, Ireland, with operational headquarters in Nottingham, UK; Costa Mesa, California; and São Paulo, Brazil.

For more information, www.experianplc.com.

Experian and the marks used herein are service marks or registered trademarks of Experian Information Solutions, Inc.

Other product and company names mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.

November 17, 2009

LearnVest Launches Award-Winning Personal Finance Website for Women

TechCrunch 50 Finalist Makes Personal Finance Fun and Accessible

NEW YORK–(BUSINESS WIRE)–LearnVest, the easiest way to understand your finances, is pleased to announce the launch of its award-winning personal finance website at www.learnvest.com. First previewed as a TechCrunch50 company in September 2009, LearnVest is the trusted liaison between women, ages 18-40, and the world of personal finance.

LearnVest provides interactive, educational content that walks women step-by-step through key financial decisions. From buying a home, to saving for grad school, to becoming a better ‘budgeter,’ LearnVest helps users achieve maximum financial health through its dynamic LearnVest Checklists, fun daily newsletters, and straightforward, easy-to-read content. LearnVest helps each user achieve her own tailored financial goals. LearnVest already enjoys a growing community of members and supporters, with thousands of beta-users enrolled since September.

LearnVest is the easiest way to understand your finances

• LearnVest enables you to gain insight into your personal finances via an easy-to-navigate web platform. LearnVest begins by asking you a series of questions to better comprehend your current financial needs. For example, are you starting a new job? Recently engaged? Planning to move soon?
• LearnVest then customizes an Action Plan specific to your individual goals, offering you a personalized experience. The LearnVest Action Plan includes articles, checklists, and financial tools—allowing you to educate yourself, become fiscally organized, and act in your best financial interest.
• LearnVest’s Checklists currently cover over 50 financial topics. They hold your hand through financial life events, breaking down daunting financial challenges into simple and actionable steps. Whether you are buying your first stock, budgeting for a wedding, or need to get out of debt, LearnVest Checklists will get you there.
• LearnVest keeps you current via the LearnVest Daily. The LearnVest Daily is LearnVest’s bite-sized newsletter full of easy-to-digest actionable tips around your personal finances, made to be read in under two minutes.
• The LearnVest Blog provides practical articles and rounds up the best financial news from around the Internet. Plus, it also features financial confessions and community wisdom from LearnVest users.
• LearnVest is safe and secure and provides bank level data security and privacy protection. LearnVest never knows a user’s personal identity.

Background information
LearnVest was founded by current CEO, Alexa von Tobel, who took a leave of absence from Harvard Business School to launch LearnVest and pursue her dream of making personal finance education accessible and interesting to everyone.

The concept of LearnVest came to von Tobel around the time she was graduating from Harvard College. She recognized that she would soon be starting a job on Wall Street without the faintest idea about her 401(k) or the significance of her credit score. In fact, she could not recall having ever learned about a single aspect of her own finances at any stage in her education. “Personal finance education is not taught in the majority of high schools, colleges, or graduate schools across the United States. As students, many of us carefully study such areas as macro- and microeconomics, yet we are left to ‘figure out’ the topic that is arguably the most critical to our financial well-being—and certainly, most relevant to our everyday lives,” says von Tobel.

Awards and Recognition
In addition to its prestigious selection as a TechCrunch 50 company, LearnVest is the recipient of the 2008-2009 Astia award. The start-up company’s preview at TechCrunch50 has been recognized by the Wall Street Journal, The Los Angeles Times, CNet, and Harvard Business School. von Tobel notes, “We understand that navigating your personal finances is daunting—regardless of your education level. So we want to make the experience more fun and manageable by providing simple steps to work your way toward financial sophistication.”

“TechCrunch and Astia have provided us with a valuable introduction to investors and to the tech community. We are now thrilled to welcome users to our site. We look forward to feedback that can help us improve as we enter our next round of product creation.”

LearnVest launch sponsored by The Limited
LearnVest is proud to name The Limited as a launch sponsor, as it is a company that strongly believes in the LearnVest mission.

The Limited. The apparel fashion retailer offering design driven, high quality suiting, dresses, sweaters, denim and accessories to satisfy women’s lifestyle demands from workday to weekend. With over 220 specialty retail locations and online access at thelimited.com, the company is based in Columbus, Ohio and is an affiliated portfolio company of Sun Capital Partners, Inc.

About LearnVest
LearnVest is an interactive, personal finance tool that fills the gap between impersonal and overwhelming books and expensive financial advisers. LearnVest walks users through personal financial issues step-by-step via dynamic LearnVest Checklists to tackle financial life events. Users can track their progress through their customized profiles and reference a complete set of Financial Basics. LearnVest has key partnerships with Bankrate and CreditKarma, among others.

To date the company has raised $1.1 million in seed funding from venture and angel investors. LearnVest’s investors include Richmond Management, Circle Financial Group, and Rose Tech Ventures. In addition, the Board of Advisors includes several prominent professionals with executive-level experience at Goldman Sachs, Intuit, Apple, Morgan Stanley, Random House, Daily Candy, and other globally-recognized organizations.

For more information about LearnVest, please visit www.LearnVest.com.