User:Julianne at NerdWallet/NerdWallet Description Draft

NerdWallet is a personal finance website and app. It provides content, tools, and reviews related to personal financial decisions. The site receives more than 100 million visitors each year.

Nerdwallet Inc. was founded by Tim Chen and Jake Gibson in 2009. The idea for NerdWallet was prompted by Chen's frustration with the personal finance information available online to answer questions from his family. It started as a credit card comparison website based on a spreadsheet of credit card offers Chen created for his sister.

This was developed into a website and became the basis for NerdWallet. Soon after, the company hired a team of journalists and has since published more than 12,500 pieces of financial content. Over time, information and tools for investments, loans, retirement, insurance, and other personal finance subjects were added. The website started growing quickly in mid-2010 and has since raised $105 million in funding. Website traffic tripled from 2013 - 2016.

In May 2015, the company raised $64 million in a series A round of venture capital funding. By 2015, NerdWallet had raised a total of $105 million in funding. By this time the website had 30 million annual visitors and was making $30 million in annual revenue. In 2016, NerdWallet acquired AboutLife, a retirement planning company, for an undisclosed sum. As of 2016, the company was valued at $520 million. In 2017, NerdWallet didn’t grow as fast as intended resulting in layoffs.

NerdWallet is available on desktop and as an app for iOS or Android devices. The app provides the user with their Transunion credit score, advice on how to improve it, and a simulator on how different financial events would affect it. The “Your Money” section tracks and analyzes the user’s spending over time and across categories. In 2018, NerdWallet released their Cash Back service that gives users cash back when they shop at participating merchants.

NerdWallet Inc. primarily derives revenue from credit card companies and other financial services providers that pay finder's fees for referring customers to them. The website discloses which providers pay NerdWallet for referrals and includes drawbacks of their products.