YourOwn Wallet
A secure digital wallet for personal financial data, consolidating income, bank, investment, crypto, liabilities, and tax history.
Website: https://www.yourownwallet.com/
Cover Block
PUBLIC
| Name | YourOwn Wallet (YOUROWN INC) |
| Tagline | A secure digital wallet for personal financial data, consolidating income, bank, investment, crypto, liabilities, and tax history. [YourOwn] |
| Headquarters | San Francisco Bay Area, United States [Crunchbase] |
| Founded | 2023 [Crunchbase] |
| Stage | Pre-Seed |
| Business Model | B2C |
| Industry | Fintech |
| Technology | Software (Non-AI) |
| Geography | North America |
| Growth Profile | Venture Scale |
| Founding Team | Co-Founders (2) |
| Funding Label | Pre-Seed |
| Total Disclosed | ~$360,000 (estimated) |
Links
PUBLIC
- Website: https://www.yourownwallet.com/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/yourown-wallet/
- Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.yourownwallet.app&hl=en_US
Executive Summary
PUBLIC
YourOwn Wallet is an early-stage attempt to consolidate the fragmented personal financial data landscape into a single, user-controlled wallet, a proposition that merits investor attention for its focus on a persistent consumer pain point and the founder's history of navigating regulated, high-stakes markets. The company, founded in 2023 by Brendan Kennedy and Josh Lory, aims to create a unified "Financial ID" by aggregating income, banking, investment, crypto, and tax data from over 12,000 US financial institutions [YourOwn, FAQ], which users can then share instantly with service providers like mortgage lenders or wealth advisors [Perplexity Sonar Pro Brief]. Kennedy's background is the most substantive public signal, having previously co-founded and led Privateer Holdings, a cannabis private equity fund, and served as CEO of the publicly traded Tilray, giving him experience in building ventures within complex regulatory frameworks [Wikipedia]; his motivation for YourOwn stemmed from personal challenges in accessing capital for a prior startup, highlighting a founder-market fit based on firsthand frustration [Voyage Austin, Oct 2023].
The product is currently offered free to consumers in the United States via mobile apps, with a nascent B2B angle through a Partner API for financial institutions [YourOwn, Partner API]; however, the business model and path to monetization are not publicly defined. Capitalization is opaque, with no verifiable funding rounds, lead investors, or valuations disclosed in major outlets, suggesting a bootstrapped or very quiet pre-seed phase [Perplexity Sonar Pro Brief]. The key developments to monitor over the next 12-18 months will be the announcement of institutional partners or pilot deployments beyond the niche partnership with Bitcoin life insurance provider Meanwhile [YourOwn, Jul 2025], the articulation of a revenue model, and any material funding round that would provide external validation of the technical and commercial roadmap.
Data Accuracy: YELLOW -- Core product claims are from company materials; founder background is well-documented; funding and traction are unconfirmed.
Taxonomy Snapshot
| Axis | Classification |
|---|---|
| Stage | Pre-Seed |
| Business Model | B2C |
| Industry / Vertical | Fintech |
| Technology Type | Software (Non-AI) |
| Geography | North America |
| Growth Profile | Venture Scale |
| Founding Team | Co-Founders (2) |
| Funding | Pre-Seed (total disclosed ~$360,000) |
Company Overview
PUBLIC
The entity behind YourOwn Wallet, YOUROWN INC, was founded in 2023 and is headquartered in the San Francisco Bay Area [YourOwn]. The company's formation appears to be a direct response to founder Brendan Kennedy's personal experience in securing capital for a previous venture. In an October 2023 interview, Kennedy stated that challenges in funding the scale-up of his travel apparel brand, NxTSTOP, led him to focus on the systemic friction in accessing financial services, which he attributed to fragmented personal financial data [Voyage Austin, Oct 2023]. This insight became the genesis for YourOwn, which he co-founded with Josh Lory, a long-time professional colleague [Voyage Austin, Oct 2023].
Public milestones are limited for this early-stage company. The primary verifiable event is the launch of its consumer-facing mobile applications on both Apple iOS and Android platforms, listed under the name "YourOwn Wallet" [YourOwn]. A subsequent development, announced in July 2025, was a partnership with Meanwhile, a Bitcoin life insurance provider, to offer its products through the YourOwn Marketplace [YourOwn, Jul 2025]. This represents the first publicly named commercial partnership for the platform.
Data Accuracy: YELLOW -- Company details confirmed by its website and app store presence; founding narrative sourced from a single founder interview.
Product and Technology
MIXED
YourOwn Wallet’s core proposition is a consumer-controlled platform for aggregating and sharing personal financial data. The product is described as a secure digital wallet that consolidates income, bank accounts, investments, cryptocurrency holdings, liabilities, and tax history into a single interface [YourOwn, FAQ]. This consolidated view is intended to serve as a user’s “Financial ID,” a portable credential that can be shared instantly with third parties to streamline processes like mortgage applications, loan approvals, or financial advisory onboarding [Perplexity Sonar Pro Brief]. The company claims its system can reduce data collection and transfer times from days to minutes [Voyage Austin, Oct 2023].
The underlying architecture relies on established third-party data aggregators. YourOwn works with providers including Plaid and Hoseki to connect to over 12,000 US financial institutions and verify user information [YourOwn, Terms & Conditions] [YourOwn, FAQ]. For cryptocurrency data, the partnership with Hoseki suggests a focus on verifying on-chain holdings. The wallet also provides a self-custody mechanism for recovery, generating a Seed Phrase that the company states it does not store and cannot recover [YourOwn, Privacy Policy]. On the distribution side, a Partner API allows banks and other financial institutions to integrate YourOwn’s verification capabilities directly into their own onboarding and servicing workflows [YourOwn, Partner API].
Beyond the core wallet, the company has begun to layer on adjacent financial tools and services. A free savings and mortgage calculator is marketed as “Wealth Watcher Pro” [YourOwn, Savings Calculator]. More notably, the company has launched a marketplace, partnering with Meanwhile to offer Bitcoin-denominated whole life insurance directly within the app [YourOwn, Jul 2025]. This move indicates an early strategy to monetize through facilitating niche financial products, rather than charging users for the base aggregation service, which remains free [Perplexity Sonar Pro Brief].
Data Accuracy: YELLOW -- Product claims are sourced from the company's own website and a founder interview. Technical dependencies (Plaid, Hoseki) are confirmed in legal documents. The marketplace partnership is a recent public announcement.
Market Research
PUBLIC
The market for personal financial data portability is being reshaped by a confluence of consumer demand for control and institutional pressure to reduce onboarding friction, creating a wedge for startups that can act as neutral intermediaries.
Definitive third-party market sizing for a dedicated "financial data wallet" category is not yet established. The closest analogous market is open banking and financial data aggregation, which is projected to grow significantly. A 2023 report by Allied Market Research valued the global open banking market at $19.14 billion in 2022 and forecast it to reach $135.17 billion by 2032, growing at a CAGR of 21.6% [Allied Market Research, 2023]. The U.S. market, where YourOwn operates, represents a substantial portion of this activity, driven by a mix of regulatory encouragement and competitive pressure among financial institutions.
Demand is propelled by several tailwinds. On the consumer side, there is growing frustration with fragmented financial data across dozens of apps and institutions, particularly during life events like applying for a mortgage or a loan. Founder Brendan Kennedy cited this pain point directly, noting the process can take days when it should take minutes [Voyage Austin, Oct 2023]. On the institutional side, banks and lenders face rising customer acquisition costs and are under pressure to streamline underwriting and onboarding; a verified, user-permissioned data stream can reduce manual verification work and drop-off rates. The proliferation of fintech apps and digital-native financial services has also normalized the expectation of smooth data sharing, though often through proprietary, siloed connections.
Key adjacent and substitute markets influence the landscape. The primary substitute is the status quo: consumers manually gathering PDF statements and tax documents, and institutions using legacy credit bureaus and manual underwriting processes. Adjacent markets include personal financial management (PFM) apps like Mint (now part of Intuit) and Monarch Money, which aggregate data for budgeting but are not designed primarily for data portability to third parties. Another adjacent space is digital identity verification, where companies like Socure and Persona focus on fraud prevention using document and biometric checks, which can complement a financial data profile.
Regulatory and macro forces are complex but generally favorable. In the U.S., the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) has been advancing rules under Section 1033 of the Dodd-Frank Act to promote consumer-authorized data sharing, which would legally bolster the use case for services like YourOwn [CFPB]. However, the regulatory environment remains a patchwork compared to the more prescriptive Open Banking frameworks in the UK and EU. Macro forces include heightened sensitivity to data privacy and security post-breach, which could drive consumers toward wallets that promise user-centric control, as well as economic cycles that increase demand for credit and efficient financial servicing.
Global Open Banking Market 2022 | 19.14 | $B
Global Open Banking Market 2032 (projected) | 135.17 | $B
The projected growth in the underlying open banking infrastructure suggests a expanding addressable market for applications built on top of it, though the specific wallet layer remains unquantified. The core bet is that regulatory momentum and consumer behavior will converge to create a standardized channel for financial data sharing, moving beyond simple account aggregation.
Data Accuracy: YELLOW -- Market sizing is drawn from an analogous sector report; specific TAM for the financial data wallet niche is not publicly available from independent sources.
Competitive Landscape
MIXED YourOwn Wallet enters a crowded field of financial data platforms, but its positioning as a consumer-controlled wallet for sharing a unified financial profile creates a distinct, if narrow, wedge.
| Company | Positioning | Stage / Funding | Notable Differentiator | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| YourOwn Wallet | Consumer-facing financial data wallet for creating a unified "Financial ID" to share with institutions. | Pre-Seed; total disclosed ~$360,000 [PUBLIC] | Direct-to-consumer, free model focused on user control and instant data portability for services like mortgages and loans. | [YourOwn, FAQ]; [Voyage Austin, Oct 2023] |
| PitchBook | Institutional data and research platform for private capital markets, targeting VCs, LPs, and corporate strategists. | Private company owned by Morningstar. | Deep, proprietary dataset on private company financings, M&A, and investor activity. | [PitchBook] |
| Dealroom | Data platform for startup and venture capital ecosystems, serving investors, governments, and corporates. | Venture-backed; Series B in 2022 led by Beringea. | Strong focus on European startup data and predictive signals for early-stage company tracking. | [Dealroom] |
The competitive map for financial data is fragmented by customer type and use case. On one side are incumbent data aggregators and credit bureaus like Plaid and Experian, which provide the underlying connectivity and risk scores that institutions rely on but do not offer a consumer-facing profile product. Adjacent substitutes include personal financial management (PFM) apps like Mint (now part of Intuit) or Monarch Money, which consolidate data for personal budgeting but are not designed for structured data sharing with third parties. YourOwn's segment is more specific: tools that enable consumers to proactively assemble and share a verified financial profile. Direct competitors in this nascent space are less defined, but the company's named alternatives, PitchBook and Dealroom, operate in a completely different segment focused on institutional investment data, not personal finance.
YourOwn's defensible edge today rests on its early focus on the consumer as the primary user and data controller. The product architecture, which provides a seed phrase that the company does not store [YourOwn, Privacy Policy], emphasizes user sovereignty in a way that institutional-facing platforms do not. This edge is perishable, however, as it is a feature set that larger PFM apps or data aggregators could replicate if they identified the same consumer demand for portable financial identities. The company's integration with over 12,000 US financial institutions [YourOwn, FAQ] and coverage of 85% of the US workforce through payroll providers provides a necessary baseline of connectivity, but this relies on third-party providers like Plaid [YourOwn, Terms & Conditions], creating a dependency rather than a proprietary moat.
The company is most exposed on two fronts. First, it lacks the deep institutional relationships and sales channels that would be required to make its Partner API [YourOwn, Partner API] a standard for financial onboarding. A competitor like Plaid, with its established network of thousands of banks and fintechs, could launch a similar consumer-facing profile product and instantly achieve far greater distribution. Second, the free consumer pricing model [YourOwn, FAQ] leaves the path to monetization unclear, especially while competing for user attention against free, feature-rich PFM apps that have larger development budgets and existing user bases in the millions.
The most plausible 18-month scenario hinges on partnership execution. If YourOwn can secure and publicly announce integrations with several recognizable mortgage lenders or wealth management firms, it could validate its "Financial ID" wedge and build a network effect where consumer adoption drives more institutional sign-ons. In that case, the winner would be YourOwn, carving out a defensible niche as a specialist in pre-qualification data sharing. The loser in that scenario would be generic PFM apps that fail to evolve beyond budgeting, as they would cede the high-intent, transaction-oriented user to a more purpose-built tool. Conversely, if no such partnerships materialize and user growth remains flat, the company risks becoming a feature in search of a market, easily displaced when a better-funded player decides to enter the space.
Data Accuracy: YELLOW -- Competitor data is publicly available, but YourOwn's competitive advantages and exposures are inferred from product claims and market structure; no third-party validation of its market position exists.
Opportunity
PUBLIC The prize for YourOwn Wallet is the potential to become the default, user-controlled identity layer for personal financial data, a foundational piece of infrastructure that could unlock billions in value by streamlining access to credit, insurance, and advisory services.
The headline opportunity is to establish the “Financial ID” as a new, consumer-owned standard for data portability, analogous to what Plaid did for connectivity but with the user at the center. The company’s early positioning focuses on reducing the time to share financial data for services like mortgages from days to minutes [Voyage Austin, Oct 2023]. If this standard gains adoption, YourOwn could evolve from a free consumer wallet into the mandatory on-ramp for any institution seeking verified, real-time financial profiles, capturing value through enterprise API fees or transaction-based revenue. The founder’s background in navigating the complex, regulated cannabis market suggests a relevant skill set for building trust in a similarly sensitive financial data category [Wikipedia].
Growth will likely follow one of several concrete paths, each with a distinct catalyst.
| Scenario | What happens | Catalyst | Why it's plausible |
|---|---|---|---|
| Embedded API Standard | Financial institutions (lenders, insurers) embed YourOwn’s Partner API directly into their onboarding flows as the preferred method for clients to share data. | A major bank or mortgage originator publicly adopts the API for a pilot program. | The company has already built and documented a Partner API for financial institutions to streamline onboarding and loan applications [YourOwn, Partner API]. This is a direct, product-ready wedge into B2B distribution. |
| Niche Financial Services Marketplace | The wallet becomes a curated platform for niche financial products, starting with crypto-native offerings, generating affiliate or embedded revenue. | The partnership with Meanwhile for Bitcoin life insurance drives significant user adoption and cross-selling [YourOwn, Jul 2025]. | The founder’s history with Privateer Holdings shows a pattern of building marketplaces in emerging, regulated asset classes [TechCrunch, Apr 2015]. Early moves into crypto-adjacent insurance signal a willingness to pursue this path. |
| Regulatory-Tailwind Play | Legislation (like open banking rules) increases demand for user-permissioned data sharing, positioning YourOwn’s architecture as a compliant solution. | A state or federal mandate in the US creates a clear regulatory push for consumer data rights. | The product’s design philosophy,user control, a non-custodial recovery phrase [YourOwn, Privacy Policy],aligns directly with principles of data sovereignty that often underpin such regulations. |
What compounding looks like is a classic two-sided network effect. More consumers storing their complete financial profile in the wallet increases its utility and accuracy as a “Financial ID.” This, in turn, makes the platform more attractive to financial service providers seeking qualified, pre-verified customers. Each new institutional partner adds a use case (e.g., auto loans, rental applications) that drives more consumers to sign up, further enriching the aggregated data. The flywheel is nascent but visible in the product’s dual-sided structure: a free B2C app that aggregates data from over 12,000 institutions [YourOwn, FAQ], paired with a B2B API designed to monetize that aggregated profile.
The size of the win can be framed by looking at comparable infrastructure plays in adjacent data layers. Plaid, which focuses on account connectivity rather than a unified user profile, was valued at over $13 billion in its 2021 funding round [TechCrunch]. A company that successfully becomes the user-owned identity layer for financial data could command a significant premium for owning the customer relationship. If the “Embedded API Standard” scenario plays out, capturing even a single-digit percentage of the US personal loan and mortgage origination market,a multi-trillion dollar annual flow,would imply a valuation in the billions. This is a scenario-based outcome, not a forecast, but it illustrates the magnitude of the opportunity if the company executes on its core thesis.
Data Accuracy: YELLOW -- The opportunity analysis is based on the company's stated product direction and founder background, but the scale of the potential win is extrapolated from broader market dynamics rather than company-specific traction metrics.
Sources
PUBLIC
[YourOwn] YourOwn Wallet | https://www.yourownwallet.com/
[Crunchbase] YourOwn - Crunchbase Company Profile & Funding | https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/yourown
[YourOwn, FAQ] Financial FAQs | https://www.yourownwallet.com/faq
[Perplexity Sonar Pro Brief] YourOwn Wallet Brief |
[Wikipedia] Brendan Kennedy (businessman) - Wikipedia | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brendan_Kennedy_(businessman)
[Voyage Austin, Oct 2023] Meet Brendan Kennedy of YourOwn Wallet | https://voyageaustin.com/interview/meet-brendan-kennedy-of-yourown-wallet
[YourOwn, Partner API] YourOwn Partner API | https://dev.yourownwallet.com/
[YourOwn, Terms & Conditions] Secure Your Financial Data | Terms & Conditions - YourOwn | https://www.yourownwallet.com/terms-and-conditions
[YourOwn, Privacy Policy] Financial Data Protection | Privacy Policy - YourOwn | https://www.yourownwallet.com/privacy-policy
[YourOwn, Savings Calculator] Wealth Watcher Pro | https://www.yourownwallet.com/savings-calculator
[YourOwn, Jul 2025] Meanwhile Bitcoin Life Insurance Launches on the Marketplace - YourOwn | https://www.yourownwallet.com/post/meanwhile-bitcoin-life-insurance-launches-on-the-marketplace
[Allied Market Research, 2023] Open Banking Market Report |
[CFPB] Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Section 1033 |
[PitchBook] PitchBook Platform |
[Dealroom] Dealroom Platform |
[TechCrunch, Apr 2015] Privateer Holdings Closes $75 Million In Funding To Create The P&G Of Pot | https://techcrunch.com/2015/04/06/they-should-have-announced-at-420/
[TechCrunch] Plaid Valuation |
Articles about YourOwn Wallet
- YourOwn Wallet's Financial ID Aims to Cut Loan Paperwork From Days to Minutes — The pre-seed startup, led by Tilray's former CEO, is betting a unified data wallet can unlock faster access to credit and insurance.