Fintech startup Grifin, launched in 2017, has a unique solution when it comes to investing: align where you shop with where you invest.
Grifin automatically withdraws $1 from a user’s checking account every time they make a purchase at a publicly traded company, then automatically invests that dollar in the company for the user. For example, if a Grifin user went to Starbucks and purchased a cold brew, the Grifin app would take $1 with the purchase and give the user $1 worth of SBUX stock.
The company on Thursday released a new adaptive investing model that makes its services more flexible, from the ability to pause automatic payments to disabling investments in some businesses where users shop. The user can now also manually increase or decrease the amount he wishes to spend on investments, from $1 up to $99 per transaction.
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“By investing in small sums, starting from $1 at a time, the goal is to help people learn to navigate the world of investing without incurring too many negative consequences if they don’t get it right,” Aaron, co-founder of Grifin. Froug told TechCrunch.
Grifin was created to democratize investing and help people understand their spending habits, Froug said. Having a positive relationship with money can be “an incredibly difficult thing to do and achieve,” she told the outlet.
Here’s how it works
I tried the Grifin app with the new adaptive investment model and found onboarding and using the service easy.
Screenshots from the app. The first shows the steps needed to create a Grifin account, the second highlights that the app requires personal information, such as SSN and home address, and the third shows how the app identifies companies to invest in.
To create an account, I had to enter personally identifiable information, such as my Social Security number and my home address. I also had to link a checking account and any other credit or debit cards I used to the app so Grifin could track my transactions.
Even though I wasn’t keen on giving out all my personal information, it was surprisingly easy to become an investor. It took less than 10 minutes to hook everything up and get it ready.
Within seconds, Grifin had already selected the four places I had shopped at in the last week, the last two weeks and the last month.
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The app is simply structured and the adaptive investment model gives me more confidence as a user because if I don’t want to invest in a certain company, but I want to buy something from it, I can do so. The $1 per transaction investment model reframes spending choices because the app allows you to spend less on consumption and more on investing time and money in businesses.
According to TechCrunch, Grifin has an app redesign and an AI chatbot in the works.
As for me, I intend to continue using this app. The financial stakes are low enough for anyone to try it.