A turbulent stock market is a boon to investing-focused fintech startups

Hello and welcome back to our regular morning look at private companies, public markets and the gray space in between.

A few weeks back we dug into the boom that savings and investing apps and services were enjoying. Companies like Acorns, M1 Finance, Robinhood and others were seeing rapid growth in their assets under management (AUM) and downloads. New data out today underscores how well finance apps are faring in the new, chaotic COVID-19 era.

You can run a simple test on yourself in this case. Since, say, January of this year, have you paid more or less attention to your banking and investing related apps and, more broadly, your financial life? Perhaps you are trying to put a bit more away? Or make sure your 401k isn’t invested in something silly?

If so, you are far from alone. To detail just how much more activity this slice of the startup world is enjoying, this morning we’re taking another look at the growth that this slice of the fintech world is undergoing. We’ll lean on some new data from a mobile app analytics provider (AppAnnie) and a report from a brokerage-infra startup (DriveWealth) to get a clearer picture of where investing and savings apps are growing and just how well they are performing.

Investing in a downturn