With a tag line of “teach your money how to make money,” Nvstr’s product offering has always been intriguing, but from a branding perspective, its name was perhaps missing something.
While Nvstr could be considered a clever brand name that is a nod to a past trend of dropping one or more vowels from a name, such as Flickr or Tumblr, it isn’t the clearest name and might not pass the radio test.
Nvstr has now, however, completed a rebrand from Nvstr to Tornado, acquiring Tornado.com along the way.
Tornado.com is a name I have tracked for several months after it moved from the possession of prominent investor Brent Oxley into a privacy-protected GoDaddy account in April 2021.
Acquired by Oxley in December 2019, Tornado.com held a $400,000 minimum offer value at Oxley.com, Brent Oxley’s Efty marketplace, although the sales price has not been revealed.
Oxley noted that Tornado’s acquisition of Tornado.com was facilitated by Amanda Waltz of Saw.com. When contacted, Amanda stated that “Brent was a pleasure to buy from. He was honest, transparent, and the transaction was seamless.”
Tornado, an online investing platform, also announced today that former CEO of Walmart, Marc Lore, former baseball star Alex Rodriguez, and founder of Barstool Sports, David Portnoy, were leading Tornado’s latest undisclosed funding round.