BoostUp has secured a seed round of investment, led by
Detroit Venture Partners, shortly after making the move from Chicago to downtown Detroit this year.
The 1-year-old financial-savings startup was spun out of Synergy Marketing Partners, the marketing agency that belongs to
BoostUp's founder & CEO, John Morgan. Morgan moved the company to Detroit in August. He has since grown it to a staff of eight people now based in the M@dison Building.
BoostUp, formerly Motozuma, started out creating software that helps people save for a down payment on a car. The technology lets people set their savings goal and tell their friends and family through social media. That way when birthdays or graduations come around the users friends and family can donate a dollar amount toward their savings goal. The new twist on crowd funding started with car down payments but has since grown to a number of different big purchases.
"Any of those things that you can set a goal for, a car, a house, a wedding or a trip," Morgan says. "It makes it very easy for people to see those goals."
BoostUp is launching the public Beta of its technology this week. One of its first campaigns BoostUp is hoping to leverage is the
dollar-for-dollar match program (up to $500) Hyundai is doing to help its customer build up a down payment for a new Hyundai automobile.
Source: John Morgan, founder & CEO of BoostUp
Writer: Jon Zemke
Read more about Metro Detroit's growing entrepreneurial ecosystem at SEMichiganStartup.com.