MrBeast, one of YouTube’s biggest stars, announced Monday that his company, Beast Industries, is acquiring Step, a banking app for teens and young adults.
Step, which has raised nearly $500 million in funding to date and has more than 7 million users, offers financial tools for Gen Z audiences to build credit, save money, and invest. The company has attracted the attention of celebrities like Charli D’Amelio, Will Smith, The Chainsmokers, and Stephen Curry, as well as major investors like General Catalyst, Coatue, and Stripe.
For Step, who wants to bring its fintech product aimed at a younger audience to a wider audience, partnering with Gen Z phenomenon MrBeast makes sense. MrBeast, whose real name is Jimmy Donaldson, is YouTube’s most-watched content creator with more than 466 million subscribers. But his ambitions aren’t limited to videos on the platform.
“Growing up, I was never taught how to invest, how to build credit, how to manage money,” Donaldson, 27, said. “I want to give millions of young people the financial fundamentals that I never had.”
The acquisition is seen as a welcome move after Beast Industries’ interest in fintech was revealed in a leaked filing last year. The company is also reportedly exploring the possibility of creating a low-cost mobile network operator (MVNO) — a mobile plan similar to Ryan Reynolds’ Mint Mobile brand.
Like other leading content creators, Beast Industries’ business model isn’t based solely on YouTube advertising revenue. The company reinvests much of that revenue back into content production. According to the leaked documents, which were published by Bloomberg, Beast Industries’ primary revenue stream is its chocolate brand Feastables, which is more profitable than both MrBeast’s YouTube channel and the “Beast Games” show on Prime Video. However, other ventures like Lunchly and MrBeast Burger have not been as successful as they were hoped.
“We believe this acquisition will strengthen our platform and provide more innovative products to Step users,” Step founder and CEO CJ MacDonald said in a statement.
