Eco-Conscious Neo-Bank Aspiration Acquires Startup to Help Track Companies’ Carbon Footprints

Pat Maio
Pat Maio has held various reporting and editorial management positions over the past 25 years, having specialized in business and government reporting. He has held reporting jobs with the San Diego Union-Tribune, Orange County Register, Dow Jones News and other newspapers in Ohio, West Virginia, Maryland and Washington, D.C.
Eco-Conscious Neo-Bank Aspiration Acquires Startup to Help Track Companies’ Carbon Footprints

L.A. fintech firm Aspiration, which offers an eco-friendly digital spin on consumer banking, has purchased Carbon Insights, a Denver-based startup that uses APIs to help financial institutions track carbon footprints.


The acquisition is Marina del Rey-based Aspiration’s first-ever since it launched in 2015. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. As part of the acquisition, Carbon Insights co-founders Chad Hunter and Ally Kadel have joined Aspiration.

Aspiration will deploy Carbon Insights’ technology to enhance its scoring system for tracking the sustainability impact of its customers’ spending habits, Aspiration co-founder and CEO Andrei Cherny told dot.LA. Carbon Insights relies on a combination of business attributes and operational data—like energy consumption and corporate expenditures—to estimate a company’s carbon footprint, Cherny explained.

Aspiration co-founder and CEO Andrei Cherny

Aspiration co-founder and CEO Andrei Cherny

The technology will allow Aspiration to better provide “a sustainability score for our customers based on where they are shopping and spending,” Cherny explained.

Aspiration is currently in the process of becoming a publicly traded company and is eying an initial public offering by the end of March. The neo-bank is expected to be valued at $2.3 billion after it merges with InterPrivate III Financial Partners Inc., a special purpose acquisition company, or SPAC.

SPAC mergers have become an increasingly common way for companies to go public. Local companies to recently pursue the route include West Hollywood-based neo-bank Dave, Culver City-based clinical research firm Science 37, and Santa Monica-based fitness brand The Beachbody Company.

The Carbon Insights purchase could be the first in a string of possible mergers and acquisitions that offer “sustainable solutions” for Aspiration, according to Cherny. He declined to identify potential targets.

“I wouldn’t speculate on the timing, in terms of whether it will be before or after we go public,” Cherny said. “But there certainly is more M&A down the road for us.”

Last month, the fintech startup received $315 million in financing from Los Angeles Clippers owner Steve Ballmer and Downtown-based private equity giant Oaktree Capital Management in advance of the SPAC deal. Oaktree initially began talks to invest in Aspiration in early 2020, before the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted the global economy and threw talks off course, Cherny said. Aspiration also sealed a 23-year, $300 million sponsorship deal with Ballmer’s Clippers last fall.

Including the financing from Oaktree and Ballmer’s affiliates, Aspiration is poised to have more than $700 million in proceeds after it goes public.

Aspiration has sought to tackle climate change through its services, which offer its nearly 2 million customers a range of tools to prioritize sustainability through their spending and investing. Its “Plant Your Change” feature, for instance, allows consumers to round up credit or debit card purchases to the nearest dollar and directs the spare change toward planting trees.

Aspiration counts actors Leonardo DiCaprio, Robert Downey Jr., and Orlando Bloom, as well as Canadian rapper Drake, among its celebrity investors. (Disclosure: dot.LA co-founder and chairman Spencer Rascoff is an Aspiration investor.)

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Mullen Automotive Pays Nearly $20 Million to Settle Lawsuit with Qiantu

David Shultz

David Shultz reports on clean technology and electric vehicles, among other industries, for dot.LA. His writing has appeared in The Atlantic, Outside, Nautilus and many other publications.

Mullen Automotive Pays Nearly $20 Million to Settle Lawsuit with Qiantu
Image Courtesy of Mullen Automotive

Like a zombie from the grave, Mullen Automotive’s electric sports car grift lives once more. Earlier this week, the Southern Californian company announced that it had resolved its contract disputes with Chinese manufacturer Qiantu and would begin to “re-design” and “re-engineer” the DragonFLY K50 platform for sale in the United States.

On the surface (or if you just read the press release) this would seem to be excellent news for the bedraggled Californian EV startup. But the saga of the Mullen/Qiantu partnership is long, and in the context of their shared history, the deal’s terms look considerably less favorable for Mullen.

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“Millions of Dollars Completely Wasted”: Without Neuromarketing, Tech Firms’ Ads Get Lost in the Noise

Samson Amore

Samson Amore is a reporter for dot.LA. He holds a degree in journalism from Emerson College and previously covered technology and entertainment for TheWrap and reported on the SoCal startup scene for the Los Angeles Business Journal. Send tips or pitches to samsonamore@dot.la and find him on Twitter @Samsonamore.

“Millions of Dollars Completely Wasted”: Without Neuromarketing, Tech Firms’ Ads Get Lost in the Noise

At Super Bowl LVII, advertisers paid at least $7 million for 30–second ad spots, and even more if they didn’t have a favorable relationship with Fox. But the pricey commercials didn’t persuade everyone.

A recent report from advertising agency Kern and neuroscience marketing research outfit SalesBrain is attempting to answer that question using facial recognition and eye-tracking software.

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