Aspiration, Inc.

Aspiration is a sustainability-as-a-service company with global operations based in Los Angeles, California.

History
Aspiration was founded in 2013 by Andrei Cherny and Joseph Sanberg. It opened for business in February 2015.

As of May 2020, Aspiration had raised over $250 million in funding.

In August 2021, Aspiration announced that it would go public on the New York Stock Exchange by merging with the special-purpose acquisition company (SPAC) InterPrivate III Financial Partners in a $2.3 billion merger. The deal is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2021. Ahead of the merger, Oaktree Capital Management and investment affiliates of billionaire Steve Ballmer committed $315 million in additional financing to Aspiration.

In October 2022, Olivia Albrecht succeeded Andrei Cherny as CEO of Aspiration.

In January 2024, the United States Department of Justice and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission launched an investigation into the firm's claims to have planted 35 million trees to offset carbon emissions. Cherny told ProPublica that only 12 million trees had been planted. Bloomberg reported that authorities were reviewing Cherny's and Sanberg's actions as part of the probe.

Products
In April 2017, the company launched a feature on its mobile app called Aspiration Impact Measurement (AIM), which examines 75,000 data points and shows scores for companies where Aspiration customers shop, based on how those companies treat people and the planet. Each Aspiration customer is also given a personal AIM score based on their purchasing behavior.

In November 2015, the company launched the Aspiration Redwood Fund. Aspiration says the mutual fund does not invest in companies involved in the alcohol, tobacco, arms and military, nuclear power, gambling, pornography, and oil and gas industries. However, the fund owns shares in several companies that heavily use fossil fuels. Almost 3% of the fund's holdings are in Southwest Airlines's stocks, which has emitted 12.6 million tons of greenhouse gases in 2020; in contrast, only 2.3% of the fund's holdings are in sustainable energy stocks. The fund also owns shares of MSA Safety, a company making safety products for the military and fossil fuel industry.

The company allows its customers to name their own checking and investing fees through its "Pay What Is Fair" initiative.

Aspiration launched a feature called "Plant Your Change" in April 2020 that allows customers to round up any transaction to the nearest dollar to plant one tree. By April of the following year, Aspiration customers collectively planted over 10 million trees.

Launched in March 2021, the Aspiration Zero credit card offered cash-back rewards and allows cardholders to offset their carbon footprint by turning every purchase into a newly planted tree. But in April 2023, the company announced the cards would be discontinued and the accounts closed the following month telling customers, "We've [Aspiration] made the difficult decision to discontinue the Aspiration Zero credit card program as we evaluate the best solutions for delivering positive climate action."

Recognition

 * 2015: Money magazine's Best Checking Account
 * 2016: Fast Company's Most Innovative Companies
 * 2017: Inc magazine's Most Disruptive Companies of the Year
 * 2021: Money Under 30’s Best Socially Conscious Company