<p><img src="https://static1.businessinsider.com/image/604928249942cf001865da73-1632/Nami color headshot.jpg" border="0" alt="Nami color headshot" data-mce-source="Harvest" data-mce-caption="Nami Baral, CEO and founder of Harvest"></p><p></p><bi-shortcode id="summary-shortcode" data-type="summary-shortcode" class="mceNonEditable" contenteditable="false">Summary List Placement</bi-shortcode><p>Fintech Acorns is set to acquire debt reduction-startup Harvest in a deal aimed at further expanding the startup's suite of tools focused on personal finance. </p><p>Acorns already offers everything from micro-investing to saving and checking accounts. However, in the push to become a one-stop shop, more fintechs have looked to expand upon their initial offerings, a process commonly referred to as "rebundling."</p><p>And as those startups mature in size, some have looked to make acquisitions helping to spur those efforts.</p><p>Acorns, founded in 2012, said it has seen large growth during the COVID-19 pandemic, like many other digitally-oriented <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/m1-finance-raises-75-million-series-d-coatue-management-fintech-2021-3">personal finance apps</a>. In the first six weeks of 2021 it added 600,000 new accounts and hit 9 million in total subscribers, the company said.</p><p>Harvest, founded in 2018 by Nami Baral, is a New York-based startup that allows customers to identify how much they're paying in interest payments and fees to financial institutions, providing users with an AI-based tool that auto-negotiates reductions in the process.</p><p>"If we can help them reduce their debt, help them earn more income, and put them on this path toward growing their wealth to saving and investing, that's really the goal that we had set," Baral told Insider.</p><p>Both parties declined to disclose the terms of the deal, which is already closed.</p><p>"At Harvest, we built the first part and we're partnering with Acorns for the second, savings and investment component," she added.</p><p>In 2020, the fintech reduced more than $4 million of its customers' debt; on average, each reduction won totaled more than $200, the company said. </p><p>Baral brings to Acorns experience launching and running Harvest, as well as a background in investment banking at Centerview Partners and nearly four years at Twitter, where she ultimately ran a team that helped handle the tech giant's advertising partnerships. </p><p>No outside advisors were involved in pulling the deal together. </p><p>"The best way these things happen is organically," Kerner told Insider. "Nami, Noah and the team at Acorns working it out, the way it should be done." </p><h2>Acorns Harvest will sit alongside the fintech's current micro-investing, saving, checking, and earning offerings</h2><p>While Acorns is headquartered in Irvine, California, there are no plans to relocate Harvest employees to the West Coast, especially given that Acorns also has a presence in New York.</p><p><img style="float:right;" src="https://static6.businessinsider.com/image/604928389942cf001865da75-1138/noah kerner (headshot).jpg" border="0" alt="Noah Kerner, CEO of Acorns" style="color: #222222;" data-mce-source="Acorns" data-mce-caption="Noah Kerner, CEO of Acorns."></p><p>Harvest, meanwhile, will be rebranded as Acorns Harvest, remaining a standalone offering within the Acorns app to be later rolled into one of the company's subscription tiersmeaning "no change for the customers right now," Kerner said.</p><p>"Nami has built great AI technology that helps people earn back money in various ways, and so it's a really nice fit with the product line that Acorns has been building already called Earn," Kerner said, referencing Acorns' tool that offers rewards when shopping online with partner retailers and, in October of last year, <a href="https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/acorns-launches-job-finder-to-help-millions-of-americans-find-work-and-earn-301154482.html">began including a job finder tool as well.</a> </p><p>The companies declined to provide a date for the official integration of Harvest into the Acorns app.</p><h2>Fintech dealmaking is on the rise</h2><p>The Harvest acquisition is just the latest in the fintech world and the second in less than four years for Acorns, which in 2017 bought retirement fund service Vault in order to build out its longer-term investing platform, Acorns Later.</p><p>Meanwhile, in early March Betterment announced <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/betterment-acquire-wealthsimple-us-accounts-robo-advisor-fintech-wealth-management-2021-3">its bid for Canadian advisor Wealthsimple's US book of business</a>, encompassing more than $190 million in assets and 17,000 customers. That was preceded in June 2020 with Empower Retirement announcing its planned acquisition of <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/personal-capital-digital-wealth-management-firm-revamping-itself-2019-10">Personal Capital</a>, a digital wealthtech startup, <a href="https://www.empower-retirement.com/empower-retirement-to-acquire-personal-capital">in a $1 billion deal.</a></p><p>SoFi, led by former Goldman banker Anthony Noto, has been particularly active. In April of last year, the personal finance add made headlines by <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/sofi-buys-payments-infrastructure-startup-galileo-for-12-billion-2020-4">buying payments provider Galileo</a> in a $1.2 billion deal.</p><p>And now as <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/sofi-spac-fintech-filing-student-debt-chamath-palihapitiya-2021-1">the company prepares to go public via a SPAC</a> raised by <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com.au/category/chamath-palihapitiya'_ga=2.1205425.1803885464.1615411518-1731495826.1615411518" data-analytics-module="body_link" data-analytics-post-depth="20" data-uri="0c491b8efcd032ab55125cef56041011">Chamath Palihapitiya</a>, the Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday that SoFi <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/sofi-is-buying-a-community-lender-to-speed-up-banking-expansion-11615291202'mod=hp_lead_pos4">had plans to buy the small Golden Pacific Bancorp</a> as part of its effort to gain a national banking charter.</p><p>In 2020, fintech M&A activity grew 25% year over year, <a href="https://www.cbinsights.com/research/report/fintech-trends-q4-2020/">according to CB Insights</a>, as companies large and small continued to look for ways to differentiate themselves <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/goldman-sachs-new-marcus-invest-robo-advisor-wealth-management-2021-2">in an increasingly crowded space.</a></p><p>Acorns, meanwhile, last raised money in a $105 million Series E round in January of 2019 that was led by Comcast Ventures and NBC Universal and valued the company at $860 million, <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2019/01/28/fintech-start-up-acorns-valued-at-860-million-after-latest-funding-round.html'utm_source=Triggermail&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Post%20Blast%20%28bii-fintech%29:%20Acorns%20approaches%20unicorn%20status%20%7C%20US%20credit%20card%20provider%20secures%20%2430M%20%7C%20Curve%2C%20Amex%20team%20up%20for%20account%20aggregation&utm_term=BII%20List%20Fintech%20ALL">according to CNBC. </a></p><p>As the startup grows, Kerns said it will continue to be on the lookout for new potential deals. </p><p>"We have a very clear vision and roadmap and concept for what our customer experience is going to be. So for us it's easy to determine who we would want to bring into the Acorns family, because we know where we're going, and we know what we're building," Kerns said.</p><p>"We're open for business," he added.</p><p><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/acorns-acquires-startup-harvest-personal-finance-fintech-dealmaking-increases-2021-3#comments">Join the conversation about this story »</a></p> <p>NOW WATCH: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/coronavirus-myths-debunked-wuhan-china-2020-2">Epidemiologists debunk 13 coronavirus myths</a></p>
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