Restoring upward mobility to the American Dream, by empowering 100M+ unbrokered Americans to build wealth together
Hedge was founded to restore upward mobility to the American Dream, and to the 150M+ Americans locked out of investing. We exist to create real pathways out of systemic poverty & wealth inequality by empowering underserved communities to build wealth together. We feel that the best way to begin, is by ensuring that the communities that we exist to serve are able to get started in the first place. A majority of investors in the United States are onboarded by family, friends, and peers. New investors need others around them to reinforce their investor identity, to build confidence, and to grow alongside in order to get from zero to one. Today's products are isolating, and reliant on an existing support system that most people just don't have, depriving newcomers of the most valuable & effective onboarding mechanism they have: each other. Our initial product aims to solve this problem by introducing a way for anyone to invest with family & friends. We aim to onboard unbrokered populations into investing at the earliest stages, and to provide the tools needed to start investing for the long-run. Our aim to grow alongside our customers, and to earn the privilege of supporting them throughout every stage of their lives.
Yash and I each signed up for our first brokerage accounts the day we turned 18 - feeling the same urgency that's driven so many other young Americans to take charge of their personal finances early. However, our backgrounds weren't particularly conducive to having those around us who could help us get started with investing. This kept us on the sidelines until we met in college, where we found that many of our friends had similar experiences. This led us to form a group chat so we could take on the challenge together, which allowed us to start learning to invest. However, we quickly realized that we couldn't actually invest together, and were once again struck by the much more profound issue of the lack of inclusion in investing. Realizing the importance that investing has in determining one's financial future and the lasting ramifications of a system that fails to provide equitable pathways for Americans to build wealth, we were overcome with a desire to bring about the profound change that we knew our financial system to be so desperately in need of, and decided to start Hedge.
Hedge is the first of a new breed of financial institutions, created for the 150M+ Americans that have been locked out of our financial system. Our mission is to create real pathways out of systemic poverty & wealth inequality, and to restore upward mobility to the American Dream.
Kyle Al-Rawi
Co-founder, CEO of Hedge