The Des Moines Register reported yesterday that billionaire “Red” McCombs recently invested a significant amount money into SmartyPig.com, the social savings network founded here in Des Moines. (People in the Midwest may remember Red from his days as owner of the Minnesota Vikings.)

Three things:

1.) This is awesome for Des Moines and Iowa. The future of Des Moines’ tech and innovation community gets a huge rocket boost with news like this — SmartyPig proves that you can have a good idea here, find the talent and resources to build it here, and be successful on a global scale.

2.) Personally, I love this line from the Register article:

(SmartyPig’s) growth has come with very little paid advertising… SmartyPig has used social networking sites, including Twitter, Facebook and others, to encourage its customers to connect … and spread the word about its unique savings accounts.

Building off my comments about the social media time investment, the SmartyPig team spent two years connecting with customers in digital mediums and busting their asses with online PR, not lazily paying overpriced ad firms to design wasteful billboards and print ads that nobody would notice.

3.) Back in February, Marc Andreessen appeared on Charlie Rose and noted the need for creating new banks instead of bailing out old, broken ones. SmartyPig is absolutely the kind of thing Marc was asking for. I’ve posted the video below.

Big congratulations to the entire SmartyPig team! Onward and upward!

Disclosure: We weren’t asked or paid by SmartyPig to write this post. We have done project work for them in the past but this article comes 100% from our excitement for them and the Des Moines tech community.