LearnVest
company on 5 shows · 17 statements across 4 episodes · said 46 times in 6 episodes since 2017
the Pitch 19 
How I Built This 13 
20VC 12 
Top Founders 2 
Masters of Scale
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the Pitch 19How I Built This 1320VC 12Top Founders 2
2024 19 mentions in 2 episodes 10 per episode
2020 13 mentions in 2 episodes 7 per episode
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17 statements about LearnVest, every show
Von Tobel left Harvard Business School in 2008 as a solo founder
“My last day was December 18th of 2008. Lehman Brothers went under, the world was in free fall financially, and I kind of said to myself, in the world, zag, do you have to zag? And I was like, I'm gonna go start a company, I'm gonna move to New York. I'm sole f…”
Von Tobel: LearnVest raised $1.1M in first outside funding round
“So our first capital round outside of my own dollars was 1.1 million dollars.”
LearnVest secured 50,000 signups and almost 10 Series A term sheets instantly
“By the end of the month, we had about 50,000 signups, and what was really crazy is then, all of a sudden, I had almost 10 term sheets being like, I want to commit to your Series A.”
Von Tobel: LearnVest raised almost $6M in Series A funding
“And ended up raising almost six million dollars in our Series A.”
LearnVest got millions of users spending only tens of thousands on marketing
“And Josh, we spent nothing on marketing. It wasn't like we had a million dollar a year marketing budget. We spent Tens of thousands of dollars. Nothing in the rearview mirror to build a user base of millions of users.”
LearnVest raised $73M total, including a Series D from Northwestern Mutual
“After four more years of hard work, Alexa had raised seventy-three million in venture funding. Her last round, the Series D, was led by Northwestern Mutual.”
Von Tobel: LearnVest held over $50M in cash before acquisition
“We, fifty million dollars, 50 plus million dollars of cash.”
Von Tobel: LearnVest sold to Northwestern Mutual for about $375M
“We ended up selling for just about three hundred and seventy five million dollars”
Hoffman: LearnVest gained 50,000 signups in its first month
“And when LearnVest officially launched less than four months later in January, the site got 50,000 signups in the first month.”
Alexa von Tobel Sold LearnVest for Approximately $375 Million
“Eventually LearnVest got acquired for about three hundred and seventy five million dollars”
LearnVest Could Have Raised Series B and C at $50M Higher Valuations
“When I was building LearnVest, there were times where I backed our series B and series C, where I could have pushed the valuation by about another fifty million dollars.”
Von Tobel: No Personal Financial Planning Classes Existed in College
“When I went to college, and I started getting, you know, studying things I'm interested in, I ended up literally, like, thinking to myself, I just want to take, like, some financial planning classes. Like, how many credit cards should I have? And, you know, ho…”
LearnVest Originated as a 75-Page Morgan Stanley Side Project
“I put together the 75 page-ish business plan that nobody read, but it was all my thoughts in one place on what this future LearnVest company, LearnVest stood for Learn, Earn, Invest.”
Von Tobel Bootstrapped LearnVest With $75,000 Saved From Morgan Stanley Bonuses
“So I had from all of my bonuses and everything from Morgan Stanley, about 75,000 dollars.”
LearnVest Reached 10,000 Sign-Ups in Its First Month
“In that first month, we had about 10,000 people who had signed up.”
LearnVest Raised Just Under $5 Million Led by Accel
“So we ended up taking, ah, just under five million dollars from Excel Venture Partners and a bunch of other really cool people and entrepreneurs threw in some money at that point.”