The YouTube megastar is making his first major bet on financial services with a Gen Z-focused fintech startup.
Money is a recurring motif in the content of Jimmy Donaldson, known on YouTube as MrBeast. Videos from the 27-year-old influencer frequently feature elaborate challenges where winners receive cash prizes or philanthropic efforts where funds are given away. The YouTube star, who runs the platform’s most popular channel with more than 460 million subscribers, is now taking his interest in finance in a new direction by acquiring fintech startup Step, which makes a banking app aimed at Gen Z.
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Step will join a number of other ventures operating under Beast Industries, Donaldson’s media company, the content creator announced yesterday (Feb. 9). Beast Industries did not disclose how much it paid for the acquisition. Step offers services that allow users under 18 to open bank accounts and credit cards.
“Nobody taught me about investing, building credit, or managing money when I was growing up,” said Donaldson in a post on X. “I want to give millions of young people the financial foundation I never had.”
Donaldson, who began posting on YouTube in 2012, has parlayed his unprecedented online success into a wide range of business opportunities. Beast Industries brands include the Feastables snack line, a lunch kit company and a toy venture, alongside media efforts that include Amazon Prime’s Beast Games television show.
Helmed by venture capitalist Jeff Housenbold, Beast Industries is valued at upwards of $5 billion. Last month, it raised $200 million from Bitmine Immersion Technologies, an Ethereum treasury company.
The first signs of Donaldson’s interest in expanding into banking emerged in October, when he filed a trademark for a financial services company called MrBeast Financial that would offer banking, cryptocurrency, consumer lending and advisory services. In an interview a few months later, the content creator confirmed plans to eventually launch a bank and revealed that he’d also like to eventually begin creating financial literacy content on a separate YouTube channel.
Step, at least for now, will be operated by Beast Industries as a standalone business, as reported by The Information. Founded in 2018 by fintech veterans CJ MacDonald and Alexy Kalinichenko, the company currently has more than 7 million customers and centers around making money management attainable for young users. “Our goal has always been to improve the financial future of the next generation,” said MacDonald in a statement.
The app has also proven popular in Silicon Valley. Step has raised more than $500 million from investors such as the digital payments company Stripe and venture capital firms Coatue Management, General Catalyst, and Crosslink Capital. Donaldson isn’t the first celebrity to show interest in Step — the app has received backing from NBA player Stephen Curry, actor Will Smith and influencer Charli D’Amelio.
Donaldson’s massive fanbase is expected to further draw young customers for Step. Gen Z accounts for 46 percent of MrBeast’s YouTube audience, according to data from Parrot Analytics. Across platforms, the creator has more than 1 billion followers and reached 1.4 billion unique people in the last 90 days alone.
Donaldson’s business empire continues to grow. Other upcoming ventures include a mobile phone service known as Beast Mobile that will follow the mobile virtual network operator (MNVO) strategy of running on infrastructure from a larger carrier, and a two-sided marketplace that matches content creators with Fortune 1000 marketers.
