CU alum creates app to grow people’s savings by using lottery as model
BOULDER — A CU alumna is looking to make financial planning more fun, with her San Francisco-based savings app Long Game.
Long Game closed its seed round of funding, with $4 million in venture capital from Collaborative Fund, Thrive Capital and Macro VC, said Lindsay Holden, founder and CEO.
The app works using a prized-based mechanism. Customers sign up for the FDIC-insured savings app and deposits money into it, much like a regular savings account. However, as savings are added to the account, the client gets a chance to play games, where they can win anywhere from 10 cents to $1 million to more chances to play. Unlike the lottery, money is never lost. The goal is to incentivize people over time to continue saving.
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“All of us can say there are people or ourselves who haven’t prepared properly for our lives financially speaking,” Holden said. “It’s super common. This was something I cared about, and the lottery is such a compelling mechanism. So we created an app for prize-linked savings.”
Because it is FDIC-insured and backed by a federal bank — Blue Ridge Bank in Virginia — the Long Game savings account is just as secure as your personal bank savings account. However, unlike most savings accounts, which offer a 0.01 percent interest rate, Long Game offers a 0.1 percent interest rate. Even if a person never plays any of the games, they can earn more on a Long Game account.
Holden said that with the funding, which brings their total venture capital to $6.6 million, Long Game plans to grow its team and improve the product. There are currently 10 team members, with three more hires planned for this month. Holden said Long Game currently has 70,000 customer accounts.
“We’re trying to make managing finances an enjoyable experience,” Holden said. “In the next year, we want to expand the type of rewards you can get on the platform and expand the type of financial products you can get on the platform. We want to be the place where people go and feel good about their finances, so they feel in control and like it’s easy. Our goal is to make our finances be an accessible and fun thing to handle, rather than right now it being something we try to avoid. Putting in a game of chance is part of that.”
