Walletifai Is Helping More People Build Healthy Financial Lives
North Americans have over $1 trillion in credit card debt and lack the right financial tools to build their best lives. The Walletifai team, driven by their ambitiously dedicated founders, is committed to creating change by leveraging AI technology.
Their mobile app is a smart assistant in your pocket. All you need to do is sign up, link to any US or Canadian bank account, and set your shopping goals. The app ensures that you can make your purchase without accruing debt when the time comes.
The Walletifai Mission
Roya understands firsthand the vicious financial cycle that many people find themselves in. While saving for a friend’s wedding trip, she found herself stuck when an urgent situation arose and she had to spend those hard-earned savings. She searched for an app that could help her change how she spent during a set time frame, but couldn’t find anything suitable. In the end, she sat down with a spreadsheet to figure out where exactly her money went, and how she could make tiny tweaks for big results.
The small spending adjustments she made snowballed, and not only did Roya reach her goal quickly – but she also continued looking for small changes that would help increase her overall quality of life and allow her to spend more where it mattered.
In 2019, as AI started to become a bigger and bigger topic of discussion, friends Razmin Soltani and Roya Kachooei couldn’t help but imagine the future together. The initial idea for Walletifai began there: Imagining a future where AI could help people build healthier financial lives. In late 2021, Walletifai was kicked off as a side project and was officially launched a year later. The co-founders are ex-Zynga -Razmin- and ex-FreshBooks -Roya-. They each have solid experience in building multinational solutions for world-class companies and brought this know-how to the table as they began building the platform. Their underlying principle is that small temporary adjustments in spending and money management could make a large impact on people’s finances, leading them to an overall healthier life both in the short term and long term.
The Walletifai mission is all about helping people experience a similar realization, and directing their attention towards the things that genuinely bring them happiness. “A lot of us get tangled up in noise around us, and we end up spending our money without it adding too much value or happiness to our lives. With Walletifai, we help people bring their focus to things that they know will make them happy,” Roya explains.
The Startup Journey
In less than a couple of years, Walletifai has come a long way as a business. They’ve focused on connecting with customers, understanding pain points, and building great advisory connections. Today, Walletifai’s team has grown to 6 people and they’ve acquired a few thousand users on their mobile app. With early revenue generated, and enhanced user engagement the team is now concentrating on fundraising to build the functionalities that their users have shown a strong preference for through beta testing. They are proactively engaging with users to enhance their ‘secret sauce,’ aiming to make it even more impactful and resourceful, leveraging their core strength.
At Fintech Cadence, we admire the founders for overcoming numerous challenges and persisting in their efforts. Their dedication to addressing this issue for North Americans is not only exemplary but also showcases their commitment to making a significant impact.
What’s Next?
Today, Roya and the Walletifai team are working around the clock on new, major additions to the platform. They’re focused on helping people adjust their spending, and constantly looking for new ways to do this. Roya teased that some exciting announcements are on the way for Walletifai, explaining, “we are looking at bringing other aspects of shopping under the same umbrella,” and highlighted the fact that these milestones are significant stepping stones towards their sophisticated vision of the future. Walletifai is actively seeking funding to bring this vision to life. If you share their belief in this change, now is the time to get in touch with them!
Walletifai & Fintech Cadence
Roya had the chance to join IFH Lab in March 2022, while working on product market fit and joined the 2023 Ascension cohort to maximize her opportunities to reach her funding milestones.
During both programs, she engaged with advisors who guided various business domains, such as crafting unique B2B and B2C marketing strategies, finance, and business development.
- Roya Kachooei, Co-Founder & CEO, Walletifai
- If you want to learn more about Fintech Cadence, click here.
- If you want to learn more about Walletifai & try out the app, click here.
Interview by Skyla Valade
