World’s largest investment manager BlackRock Inc. just took an “anchor stake” in Irvine-based fintech Acorns, micro-investing app with 3.3 million customers robo-investing their change on every purchase—often into Black Rock managed ETFs. (iShare ETFs what helped make BlackRock a $6.3 trillion investing beast, through its buy of Barclays Global Investors.)
We couldn’t resist the hopeful metaphor. Here’s the Big Kahuna, with a modest investment, amount undisclosed, saying yes, acorns still grow in OC.
BlackRock didn’t buy in, initially.
“Acorns is a small investment but a bigger story,” Mark McCombe, BlackRock’s head of the America’s region told Insider and Financial Editor Peter J. Brennan at an hourlong free-ranging discussion at the Business Journal last week.
“What they’re doing has a positive social good,” McCombe added. “People need to invest more, save more. Let’s tap into a zeitgeist, the power of compounding.” But McCombe added, “This investment was just one lens.”
So our chat tended to jump back to the ‘small investment’ and the Kahuna’s take on the regional ecosystem. After all, a BlackRock rep will get a seat at the Acorns board, part of Crutteneden Partners where they’ve been growing successful investment cos. and fintechs for generations—recall EOfferring?
And the Acorn buy-in hardly the first piece of business the B2B investor has done here. “Tons of business in Orange County, very focused on the region,” McCombe added, newly based in San Francisco, as BlackRock recasts much of its gaze westward and techward. It has a small Newport office, small part of our financial center.
“That financial center in Newport spawned a little ecosystem,” McCombe noted. “You don’t have to worry that there’s not a major bank here. It’s a very good thing that’s happening here.”
And a place where acorns still grow?
“What I always found in Orange County … it’s a manifestation of the California success story. Wealth. New wealth … highly professional …entrepreneurial spirit in CA writ large is something unique and I’ve lived in nine countries. Orange County is a big part of that pioneering spirit.”
Bill Carpou and OCTANe are heavily invested in the new ecosystem. In advance of OCTANe’s Technology Innovation Forum on May 31 Carpou and counterparts announced a new regional alliance with San Diego (SDGV) and Los Angeles (LAVA): InSoCal. “Unify this Southern Californian ecosystem,” Carpou told me.
“InSoCal will never be a physical HQs; no formality—share resources, content—most importantly a shared goal, elevating the Southern California ecosystem.” 31 orgs. pledging reg’l unity so far—from USC to Chapman to VCs like Toba Capital. InSoCal a year in the works, “acknowledgment we’ve not been as networked as we could be,” Carpou conceded.
Insider hears sales of LA Chargers premium suites at the Stadium at Hollywood Park are brisk … sold out at multiple price points, including the “most expensive”… Chargers and LA Rams move into $4B stadium 2020. Chargers have 10-year lease at Costa Mesa HQ and training facility. Organized Team Activities (OTAs) Tuesday … minicamp June 12-14 at Jack Hammett Sports Complex.
Chargers of course a family-owned biz—enjoy our Special Report on OC’s family-owned, some great features, the SR begins on page 17.
Hail Fellow … kudos to our colleague, Healthcare Editor Sherry Hsieh, one of the select 2018 Mayo Clinic-Cronkite fellows for 2018, who spent the week learning from Mayo’s experts the latest in medicine around the world—AI, personalized medicine, regenerative and sharing ideas with her health-journo fellows on video, data and investigative reporting.
Inspiration Point … lost the great and iconic Tom Wolfe, 88, last week. Thank you for the books like “Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test” and “Right Stuff”… the lexicon “radical chic,” “Me decade,” for New Journalism and mostly, for standing up.
