Beast Industries, the entertainment company founded by YouTuber Jimmy “MrBeast” Donaldson, is acquiring Step, a mobile banking app for teens and young adults, marking its most vital foray into the financial industry up to now.
In a post on
Source: MrBeast
Jeff Housenbold, CEO of Beast Industries, said: “Financial health is key to overall well-being, yet too many individuals lack access to the tools and knowledge they should construct financial security.”
The acquisition costs weren’t disclosed.
The YouTube channel's expansion into finance comes after it received a $200 million investment from Ethereum finance firm BitMine Immersion Technologies in January and a separate trademark application for “MrBeast Financial” in October.
This trademark application mentioned “cryptocurrency exchange services,” “cryptocurrency payment processing,” and “cryptocurrency through decentralized exchanges.”
However, it just isn’t clear whether this trademark application is expounded to the Step acquisition.
Cointelegraph reached out to Beast Industries for comment but didn’t receive an instantaneous response.
Step scales to six.5 million users in 8 years
The Step app is designed to assist Gen Z users manage money, construct credit, earn rewards, and deepen their financial literacy. Spending accounts are insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation through Evolve Bank & Trust.
The banking app has grown to six.5 million users since its launch in 2018 and has raised around $500 million from the likes of Steph Curry, Justin Timberlake, Will Smith and Charli D'Amelio.
The YouTube channel MrBeast is the most important channel on the video streaming platform with 466 million subscribers.
Housenbold said the Step acquisition “enables us to satisfy our audience where they’re with practical, technology-driven solutions that may change their financial future for the higher.”
At the time of BitMine's strategic $200 million investment, Chairman Tom Lee said the corporate viewed the deal as a long-term bet on the creator economy, stating:
“MrBeast and Beast Industries is what we imagine is the leading content creator of our generation, with a reach and engagement unmatched amongst GenZ, GenAlpha and Millennials.”
Lee said that BitMine's corporate values are “strongly aligned with Beast Industries,” but didn’t mention anything about integrating crypto on the time.
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