Acorn Uses Vault Acquisition To Launch Retirement Fund Services

Following its acquisition of Vault, Acorns has rolled out a simple way to open and fund a retirement account through Acorns Later. The launch marks the company’s first tax-advantaged product offering, the company said in an announcement.

“Setting up a retirement account is confusing and, as a result, two out of three Americans aren’t saving for later in life,” said Acorns CEO Noah Kerner. “Acorns Later removes friction from the decision making process, getting back to our central product philosophy: Make big decisions small.”

Acorns Later is designed to automatically recommend a retirement account and portfolio for customers. Based on factors such as an investor’s age and income, the app suggests a portfolio in either a traditional, Roth or SEP retirement account.

To stay within the company’s founding principle, consumers can start Later accounts with as little as five dollars, and can set recurring contributions by the day, week or month. Portfolios will also rebalance over time.

“We joined the Acorns team to offer more Americans a simpler way to save,” Vault founder and CEO Randy Fernando, who is now managing director and head of investment products at Acorns, said in the statement. “Today, it’s exciting to see everyone working together to create another solution to help the up-and-coming grow their wealth.”

Additionally, Acorns plans to double the size of its Portland office through the recruitment of engineers, product developers and customer support representatives.

Acorns Later is available for $2 per month to consumers who have up to $1,000,000 invested with Acorns. The service comes as a bundle that includes the full suite of Acorns automated tools, such as Round-Ups, dividend reinvestment, automatic rebalancing, Found Money and its education platform Grow.

Acorns is a micro-investing app in the U.S. that allows customers to automatically invest in a low-cost, diversified portfolio of exchange-traded funds. Customers have access to portfolios constructed with help from Nobel Laureate economist Dr. Harry Markowitz.