VirtueThe money app is aimed at Gen Z and millennials with a way to pay off debt, save and invest with the help of friends and family. The social finance app is now open to the public after a year of testing the product with hundreds of beta users.
Hyve is building a multiplayer fintech infrastructure for saving and investing where users can build their network of followers, and those people can automatically round up their purchases to match the user’s personal cash contributions. The more people are added to the “hyve”, the more money the user saves to achieve their goals.
Royi Markowitz, co-founder and CEO of Hyve. Image Credits: Virtue
Social finance is by no means a new concept, think Public.com, Frich Money, Braid, Follow and Shares. However, Royi Markowitz, co-founder and CEO, told TechCrunch that Hyve is a hybrid between Venmo and Acorns and stands apart from the competition with its infrastructure.
“Our core is our ledger, which is the movement of money within the platform,” Markowitz said. “Converting a single player ledger to a hybrid 3D multiplayer ledger is very, very difficult, especially for a company that already has hundreds of line items in their ledger. Hyve is really the only place where I can use my credit card to send $1 or $20 or $1,000 to your investment portfolio and be part of your savings so you can get there faster.”
Here’s how it works: After downloading the app and creating a profile, users link their bank accounts and set up automatic deposits. They then create their first goal and share it with friends and family. Users can also discover other people’s goals through Hyve’s social media and support them.
Features in the free app include automatic rounding of purchases, one-click investing from a savings account, and 2.10% APY on all savings account balances. There are also financial tools to help eliminate debt.
The Hyve pre-revenues and is still in the early stages, but through its beta program, users have created a “hyve” with an average of about three people and have created savings goals that they want to achieve for a total of of more than $850,000. Markowitz expects to reach 100,000 active users within the next year.
Future income planning includes charging for “smart” goal creation, saving to pay off student loans, a fee to connect users with lenders, access to information, and loan refinancing opportunities.
And while he’s focused on consumers, Markowitz said the company recently secured his first employer, which he declined to name, adding 300 new customers to the roughly 1,000 people currently on the waiting list. Under this model, employers will pay Hyve a SaaS fee for each employee.
The company raised $2.25 million in a pre-seed round in January 2022 from a group of investors that included The Flying Whale VC, MoreVC and the founders of Guardio. It is currently raising another round of funding that is expected to close later this year.
