This App Is Helping Millennials Build Wealth – And It Just Exited Stealth With A Historic Pre-Seed

Belong, a London-based fintech startup has recently launched out of stealth, following a €3.4 million ($3.6 million) pre-seed funding. 

This achievement marks the largest pre-seed round ever raised by female founders in Europe.

Helping millenials build wealth

Millennials are the first generation in history to be worse off than their parents financially.

Belong was established in 2023 by former investment banker Avion Gray and behavioral economist Samantha Rosenberg to change this.

Nick Hungerford, a pioneer in European fintech, brought together co-founders Gray and Rosenberg. Hungerford’s legacy continues to influence the company, even after passing in July 2023.

“We need two things in order to build long-term wealth – time and money, but we rarely have both of these elements concurrently,” Gray said in a press statement.

“Millennials still have the time ahead of us to see any long-term investment we make now compound and pay off before retirement, but we often struggle to get started.”

Belong, operating in stealth is the first platform to offer customers an optional loan to increase their long-term investment in equities.

It also has created a low-interest “Boost loan” feature, allowing more money to be invested upfront.

Customers can repay the Boost loan separately, in small monthly installments, allowing their investment to grow.

Belong’s Investment

The startup’s notable investors include Octopus Ventures, Viola Fintech, and Connect Ventures, as well as fintech experts like Ricky Knox and William Todd. 

With the platform already having 84% of beta customers opting for a Boost loan, Belong aims to enable this generation to capitalize on their collective savings potential, estimated at $379 billion in the UK alone.

“As you could probably imagine, this was not an easy concept to design, structure, build, and test,” Gray wrote on LinkedIn.

“We’ve been in private beta for well over a year and have amassed an early group of customers who are full of energy, love, pride, and ideas.”