Verve raises $3 million to level the playing field for women investors

Women-focused financial services company Verve has raised funds to expand its financial service offerings to launch a new goals-focused ethical investing platform tailor designed around the needs and desires of women investors, announcing an oversubscribed pre-Series A $3 million raise and closing the round early.

The investment app Verve Money, which launched on July 17, allows investors to select from one of three ethically curated portfolios that are designed with different goal time frames in mind, ranging in risk level and anticipated returns. 

A key feature of Verve Money’s investments is that every portfolio is not only ethically screened but also includes impact-focused alternative investments including a minimum 20% investment of each portfolio in climate solutions.

In December 2018, co-founders Christina Hobbs, Alex Andrews and Zoe Lamont came together to launch Verve Super, the first Australian superannuation fund to be founded by women, led by women, and tailored for women.

Verve co-founder and CEO Christina Hobbs said she felt relieved that Verve had successfully raised the capital. 

“My first emotion was relief, we were told that it was going to be a tough period to be raising capital and so there were some nerves going into the raise, but we had a big vision for becoming the leading destination in Australia for women to build wealth, and we desperately wanted to bring that vision to life,” she said.

“We know that there’s a huge unmet demand from people who are looking for a strong ethical investment app in the market, and we know that there are a significant number of underserved women who don’t know who to trust with their investments. 

“It’s exciting and incredibly encouraging that so many impact-focused investors got behind us so quickly in this capital raise and believed in our vision. 

“We’ve now just launched the ethical investing app Verve Money, and seeing literally thousands of new members jump on board within a week of our official launch, many women investing for the first time, is ultimately the greatest feeling for us and our investors.”

Verve currently has close to 9,000 members across the two products, Verve Super and Verve Money, and over 25,000 members in its community. 

Hobbs said the $3 million capital raised, which was led by impact-focused family office Alberts, will be used to expand the Verve Money platform, as well as grow both the platform and Verve Super. 

Focus on building wealth ethically

“We’ll use the funds to build out our technology, to employ the best people we can to serve our members, and of course, we’ll also use the funds to market both Verve Super and our new ethical investing app Verve Money to grow our membership. Superannuation and Managed funds are also tightly regulated industries so continuing to invest in a strong compliance function is also of key importance to us,” she said.

“We will be strongly focused on building out the technology behind Verve Money and of course growing Verve Super and Verve Money membership so that we can support even more members to build wealth ethically. We’ll also be looking at how to elevate our financial coaching content to the next level to support more people to be able to access engaging general advice.”

Hobbs said Verve Money was launched with the intention to level the playing field. 

“We built Verve Money after surveying over 500 people, mostly women, and having face-to-face conversations with those over 50 — this included a bunch of conversations that I personally had with potential members,” she said.

“We wanted to truly understand the driving forces behind the gender investing gap and then to solve that through a product that met the needs of women. 

“Verve Money is unique in the market as every investment option is ethically screened, and the fund invests in shares as well as alternative impact-focused investments not listed on the stock exchange. 

“This means that we can not only inspire our members about the power of their investments, but also ensures that the investment options are more diversified than the pure ETF and share-based investing options in market, with increased diversification strongly linked to decreased risk — an important issue for many women investors. 

“The app also centres the life and money goals of our members, because we know that many women aren’t motivated by just getting rich for the sake of it. We’re excited that 90% of our investors are women and many investing for the first time. We’re motivated that men and non-binary people love our product too. 

“Verve Money launched at the beginning of this week, so next up is investing in product development to make it truly loveable and marketing it to build a mass community of ethical investors, using the power of their money to change the world.” 

In the current Australian investment marketplace men make up the majority, 58%, of Aussies investing outside of superannuation and a primary place of residence. Male investors also continue to have larger portfolios on average, which is $667,000 compared to $413,000 for women.

Hobbs said there are many reasons for women’s economic inequality, and that they don’t pretend to solve most of them. 

“However, when we were looking to launch Verve Super in 2018 it was clear that financial services companies were in general doing a woeful job of supporting women to build wealth. So since day one our mission has been to do just that — to help close the 23% retirement savings gap, and support women to build their long-term wealth and invest in a better world,” she said. 

“Today we have one of, if not the highest, Net Promoter Score, a way of measuring customer satisfaction, of any super fund in Australia. Our member reviews and our growth speaks for itself. The unique service that we provide our members, and the fact that we are truly able to support so many of them, is what drives the word of mouth behind our business success. 

“We also know that our members get a real kick out of being part of an ethical investing community and knowing that their money is powering things like renewable energy, disability housing, and other impact investments. And now we can’t wait to support women to build wealth outside of super and close the investing gap.”