Investment
A pair of University of California-Irvine students were the inaugural winners of a new innovation scholarship awarded by intellectual property and litigation firm Maschoff Brennan.
The Student Innovator Scholarships, presented to Ning Ma, a Ph.D. candidate in Biomedical Engineering, and Patrick Dumas, an undergraduate majoring in business and computer sciences, were given during the Business Journal’s Innovator of the Year Awards event on Sept. 20 at Hotel Irvine.
Ma was recognized for her work developing a novel screening technology that increases the success rate of in vitro fertilization, while reducing the risk and cost of the procedure.
Dumas was recognized for developing a unique adapter that allows any skateboard to mimic the turns of a surfboard.
Both award recipients are currently working on bringing their inventions to market.
Each scholarship is for $2,500.
Officials with Maschoff Brennan, which has about nine lawyers in its Irvine office, said they will award up to three Student Innovator Scholarships annually in Orange County.
— Mark Mueller
People
Irvine-based Acorns Grow Inc., one of the country’s fastest-growing fintech firms, has a new executive with a title unlikely to be replicated at any other area business.
The micro-investing firm said in September that Shlomo Benartzi, professor and co-founder of the Behavioral Decision-Making Group at UCLA Anderson School of Management, has joined as chair of the company’s Behavioral Economics Committee.
Benartzi is bringing together a team of scientists to launch “Money Lab,” an initiative that “aims to create, test and build solutions to increase the financial well-being of the up and coming in America, with a special focus on savings and investment,” the company said.
His first experiment powered by Acorns asked customers: Would they like to save $5 every day, $35 a week or $150 a month?
The total amount of money set aside is practically the same, yet while only 7% opted to save $150 a month, nearly 30% decided to save $5 a day.
The question has notable impact on the company’s operations. Acorns’ technology helps consumers automatically invest spare change from everyday purchases into diversified ETF portfolios.
He’s not the only intellectual heavyweight at Acorns; the company’s portfolios were put together with help from Nobel Laureate economist Dr. Harry Markowitz.
Acorns has built an investment app for individuals that now manages more than $800 million raised from over 4 million users. In May, it announced a $50 million fundraising round led by BlackRock Inc. (NYSE: BLK), the world’s largest asset manager.
— Mark Mueller
Irvine-based Acorns Grow Inc., one of the country’s fastest-growing fintech firms, has a new executive with a title unlikely to be replicated at any other area business.
The micro-investing firm said in September that Shlomo Benartzi, professor and co-founder of the Behavioral Decision-Making Group at UCLA Anderson School of Management, has joined as chair of the company’s Behavioral Economics Committee.
Benartzi is bringing together a team of scientists to launch “Money Lab,” an initiative that “aims to create, test and build solutions to increase the financial well-being of the up and coming in America, with a special focus on savings and investment,” the company said.
His first experiment powered by Acorns asked customers: Would they like to save $5 every day, $35 a week or $150 a month?
The total amount of money set aside is practically the same, yet while only 7% opted to save $150 a month, nearly 30% decided to save $5 a day.
The question has notable impact on the company’s operations. Acorns’ technology helps consumers automatically invest spare change from everyday purchases into diversified ETF portfolios.
He’s not the only intellectual heavyweight at Acorns; the company’s portfolios were put together with help from Nobel Laureate economist Dr. Harry Markowitz.
Acorns has built an investment app for individuals that now manages more than $800 million raised from over 4 million users. In May, it announced a $50 million fundraising round led by BlackRock Inc. (NYSE: BLK), the world’s largest asset manager.
— Mark Mueller
