Stripe, SoFi and Robinhood Alums Launch Gen Z Neobank Uprise

Uprise, a FinTech which aims to help Gen Z manage money in a “digital family office,” has launched after raising $1.4 million in a seed funding round.

The company already has a 7,000-strong waiting list in the U.S., AltFi reported Tuesday (July 12), and plans to launch abroad in the future.

Uprise’s concept involves helping Gen Z optimize their finances, which will come with building credit, pensions and various other employee benefits, mostly through automated processes, facilitated through open banking and connecting to users’ accounts.

The firm was founded by Jessica Chen Riolfi, a former Robinhood employee and current Uprise CEO, and Chris Goodmacher, who previously worked at HR tech firm JustWorks. The wider team also includes former executives from SoFi, Stripe, Cash App, Robinhood, Carta and Gusto, per the report.

The FinTech wants to offer an “unbiased view” on what banks are good to use, helping users navigate a cluttered market of various competing apps.

“There are so many fintechs out there, and for Gen Z in particular, there’s a tonne of different types of financial products, trying to make a grab at their money. Everybody wants your direct deposits, everybody wants your cash. How do you make sense of that?” Chen Rolfi said in the report.

She continued that the alternatives often come down to researching online, reading personal finance books or using YouTube or other apps. In contrast, Uprise personalizes things so “you don’t have to wade through the mess of content that’s out there and say, ‘This is exactly what I should do,’” she said.

In other Gen Z-related news, PYMNTS wrote that inflation is pushing consumers to review their streaming subscriptions — but millennial and Gen Z customers have been looking at other metrics than just the cost. Those generations have also been a reliably strong contingent for growth in the subscriptions.

Read more: Millennial Minute: Inflation Hasn’t Dampened Younger Customers’ Appetite for Subscriptions

A PYMNTS and sticky.io collaboration, the Q2 2022 “Subscription Commerce Conversion Index,” saw over 2,140 U.S. consumers surveyed and found that the three big factors came down to enjoyment, convenience and cost.

According to the survey, younger customers, who drove a large percentage of the gains, are looking more for “experiences,” rather than calculating the costs as the primary driver of things.