NoVa startup Range raised $12M to help users with financial planning

After just a few years of existence, McLean, Virginia wealth management company Range now has the bragging rights to a $12 million Series A, led by Google’s AI VC fund Gradient Ventures.

But before such a notable raise, CEO Fahad Hassan created the app simply to help him and his wife, who was pregnant at the time, manage their money in the wake of COVID-19.

“Money was something that more and more people were talking about, so it just naturally progressed to the point of, ‘Wow, there’s no place for me and my wife to manage our money together,'” Hassan told Technical.ly. “That was really the genesis of Range.”

With the help of cofounder and CTO David Cusatis, that idea became Range in December 2020. The 15-person company helps customers manage money entirely online. Range is a registered investment advisory through the Securities and Exchange Commission, and is in the middle of building AI-powered tools to help with financial planning. Currently available online and in a beta app, Range is designed to make financial planning more accessible by automating some of the processes, thus lowering costs.

Expa, Red Sea Ventures, 8-Bit Capital, Randy Reddig, Adrian Aoun, Severin Hacker and Dan Lewis also had faith enough in this idea to take part in the round.

With Range, users can connect all of their financial accounts, including insurance and loans. Once that’s all put together, Range’s modules will help them with retirement planning, investment management, taxes, education planning and even what someone would need to have kids. Those inputs are all fed to Range’s in-house financial planners.

Hassan cited Range’s efficiency as one of its best assets. While traditional financial planners can take months to develop a customer’s plan. But AI speeds up the process significantly.

“We’re able to deliver that same plan or better in a matter of days, and that’s really because of the power of the technology we’ve built,” said Hassan, who declined to share more details about the company’s technology.

Range will largely use the funds for hiring product managers and engineers, continuing the development of the technology and growing the company to 30 people by the end of the year. Hassan also hopes that Range customers can use the technology more and more on their own without needing to consult financial advisors. Ideally, he’d like to see Range reach the point where it can answer any and all financial questions at the touch of a button — removing the need to Google any information.

But all that aside, Hassan said that if he can find a way to alleviate some of that stress and tension around money, he’ll consider Range a successful company.

“There are a lot of folks who don’t understand how to best manage their cash flows for their household. They don’t know which questions to ask and they feel dumb doing it when they shouldn’t,” Hassan said. “So we want to make things like that way more accessible with way easier-to-understand answers to the questions that you have about your money.”