Stack, a Seattle based start-up that is building a platform to enable teenagers to invest in and learn about cryptocurrencies, has raised $2.7 million to upgrade its content production division.
The funds come from madrona venture group, venture collection and Santa Clara ventures.
Stack was originally spun off from a Seattle based fintech incubator and completed a $500000 round of pre seed investments from on deck and Santa Clara ventures in January. In March this year, it won a $100000 prize in the Web3 venture competition called launchable held by madrona venture lab.
Stack is launching IOS and Android apps, and there are currently 5000 people waiting. The company aims to differentiate itself from other crypto trading applications by creating an education platform while investing in infrastructure. This will include a series of encryption related content aimed at attracting teenagers to stay away from other content on platforms such as tiktok and Youtube.
Generation Z audiences are increasingly interested in financial knowledge. A study found that as of the end of September 2021, the tag “fintok” on tiktok had more than 500 million views, while the tags “cryptocurrency” and “investment” had more than 2 billion and 3.7 billion views, respectively.
“There is a Zeitgeist and passion behind cryptocurrencies,” will rush, CEO and co-founder of stack, said in an interview with geekwire. “People will try to get into it.”
Rush said that it would be a challenge to become a source of facts and a competitive point of view for encryption related content. Rush worked in youth banking in the copper industry and was a risk researcher at fuse. Along with him, Angela mascarenas, co-founder and product director, once held a leadership position at J.P. Morgan Chase, focusing on youth banking; CTO Natalie young, she founded many companies and worked as a software engineer in T-Mobile.
(stack photos)
Stack will make money with a $3 monthly subscription. However, rush said that users can offset this cost by consuming content on the platform, which will reward users for watching the encryption of videos.
“Stack’s business model is carefully designed around education rather than trading incentives,” madrona wrote in her blog. “Unlike more than 18 crypto exchanges, stack makes money by subscribing instead of every transaction. Users can also get bit sized content in the app every day and receive encryption as a reward for watching.”
Madrona has been making big bets on startups related to network 3. On Wednesday, the company announced that it was one of the investors who invested $13.5 million in spice AI. This is when the whole industry has experienced a decline in interest and frequent negative news.
For example, Luna lost $40 billion in the sudden crash in May; Meta’s digital wallet pilot project Novi was closed in September; Crypto broker Voyager digital filed for bankruptcy in July. Meanwhile, the prices of bitcoin and Ethereum have fallen by more than 50% this year.
But rush said he was not too worried. He said that after the introduction of regulation and centralization, the market will eventually rebound, adding that when this happens, stack will be in a favorable position to take advantage of the next bull market. He compared it with Robinho, who started after the financial crisis and made huge profits in last year’s bull market.
Rush said that his former employers copper, step and greenlight would become stack’s biggest competitors. He added that Robinhood and Charles Schwab are also launching educational products for teenage users. He said that stack will eventually be different by focusing on encryption products.
“Obviously, this is a unique product, operating in a unique field,” he said. “In the final analysis, I think that’s where our strength lies and how we succeed.”