Are the kids alright? Covering fintech typically gives me a pretty bleak answer to the age-old question. From prediction markets to crypto to zero-day options, every new financial product targeted at Gen Z seems to fall under the category of “economic nihilism,” or the idea that everything is rigged, so you might as well try to get rich quick.
Mine, a credit card and financial planning company founded by two Gen Z college dropouts, is attempting to buck the trend. Mine is announcing $14 million in fresh funding in a 359 Capital-led Series A, with participation from existing investor Kleiner Perkins. Cofounders Carlo Kobe and Scott Smith are confident they can convince their generation to stop spending their hard-earned money on betting whether the U.S. will invade Greenland or Eric Adams’s latest memecoin. “The same trend that makes people want to invest into crypto or gamble money in a prediction market…is a pretty big tailwind for us,” Kobe told me. “Young people are really longing for hope and increased certainty that they indeed can achieve financial independence.”
Kobe and Smith started Mine (formerly known as Fizz, which they had to change due to another popular Gen Z app) out of Y Combinator back in the credit card fintech heyday of the early 2020s. Understanding the difficulty that most young folks have with opening their first credit cards, they designed their offering to function more as a debit card that can build credit. That includes features that encourage users not to spend beyond their linked checking accounts. (They bill the product as a debit card, even though it has a line of credit backing it, and is issued by the fintech-friendly Lead Bank.)
