There is a moment in every generation when money stops feeling like math and starts feeling personal. For Gen Z, that moment usually arrives with a rejection email, a declined card, or a credit score...
There is a moment in every generation when money stops feeling like math and starts feeling personal. For Gen Z, that moment usually arrives with a rejection email, a declined card, or a credit score that looks like a shrug. Mine was born inside that moment. NYC-based, founded in 2021 by Carlo Kobe and Scott Smith, two college dropouts who met at 18, started building at 19, and decided that the financial system explaining nothing to young adults was not a feature. It was the flaw.
Mine came out of Y Combinator Summer 2021 under the name Fizz, moved fast across more than 300 campuses, and then did something most startups avoid until lawyers beg them not to. It grew up. In January 2026, Fizz became Mine. Not because names are cosmetic, but because the product stopped being a single credit building wedge and became a full personal finance platform. The message tightened. Money should feel like it belongs to you. Mine, not theirs.
Mine raised a $14M Series A, led by 359 Capital with participation from Kleiner Perkins and new investor FJ Labs, plus continued support from Y Combinator and US News. Total capital now sits at $28M. The round closed as Mine crossed roughly 600,000 users, over $10M in annual recurring revenue, and a customer base where 70% are under 30. That is scale with receipts.
The product logic is clean. The Mine Card builds credit without interest, without hidden fees, without the quiet traps that teach bad habits early. Transactions report to Experian and TransUnion, autopay settles daily, SafeFreeze locks things down when discipline slips. It is debit behavior with credit consequences, engineered for people who do not want debt cosplay. Layered on top is MoneyGPT, launched with the rebrand, an AI money agent trained on real behavior, not generic advice. It watches patterns, tracks accounts, and talks to users like adults who actually have variable income, loans, and plans.
Carlo Kobe, now a Thiel Fellow and Forbes 30 Under 30 honoree, built this after being denied credit as an international student who did everything right on paper. Scott Smith scaled it across campuses by meeting students where stress lives, not where banks advertise. Investors like Ilya Fushman at Kleiner Perkins and David Hartwig at 359 Capital are not betting on vibes. They are betting that financial confidence compounds faster than fear.