“The single most powerful asset we all have is our mind. If it is trained well, it can create enormous wealth in what seems to be an instant.”―Robert T. Kiyosaki, Rich Dad, Poor Dad

Being more conscious of your expenses and savings will make you feel financially secure, allowing you to achieve your financial goals.

Taking an AI-first approach, Douugh is the thing that will help you foster good habits of spending wisely and saving regularly, hence establishing your financial well-being.

Douugh is an Australian full-service fintech banking app offering consumers one-stop to budget, save, and invest their money to become financially literate by their own means.

No more needlessly spending your hard-earned money! The team behind Douugh is focusing on democratizing banking and making money management effortless while fostering positive financial habits.

Read on to capture the essence of Douugh’s story and learn all there is to know about the enterprise.

The Team Behind Douugh

Within Australian fintech, Douugh is a passionate group of engineers, data scientists, designers, and financial service specialists united under the same premise - to make the world financially healthier through budgeting, saving, and investing.

This group of tech enthusiasts, led by Douugh’s Founder and CEO Andy Taylor and the Co-Founder and CPMO Mark Taylor, believe in the power of technology to disrupt the banking industry and reimagine the banking experience, thus empowering individuals.

Douugh’s Andy has always been passionate about disruptive technologies that significantly alter how consumers, industries, or businesses operate. He himself is a disruptor who breaks conventional boundaries and comes up with innovative solutions that solve real-life problems through software platforms.

Andy went from working as Chief Sales Marketing Officer to Founder at Yatango to Co-Founder of SocietyOne - Australia’s first and leading peer-to-peer lending platform. In 2015, he was nominated for the Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the Year award.

The Fintech Aussie pioneer holds a BBS in Marketing Communications from Massey University, which has a well-established international reputation for its research innovation and excellence.

Thanks to such educational background and outstanding work experience, Andy, together with Mark and a bunch of tech enthusiasts, has created a next-gen neobank with an AI-first approach. Founded in 2016, Douugh is Andy’s latest venture and most ambitious project yet.

Mark, Douugh’s Co-Founder and CPMO, is a digital native, a results-driven marketer with brilliant brand experience. He has also attended Massey University and holds a BSS in Marketing and Enterprise Development.

Mark has had various past experiences in which he has demonstrated an agile and disruptive mindset around everything from customer marketing to product management to overall enterprise growth.

The Banking Experience Reimagined

The growing desire of millennials and Gen Z-ers to access financial services from digital channels has led to the development of radically new banking models. And that’s precisely where Douugh sits - a disruptive financial technology company that bridges the world of centralized and decentralized finance, helping consumers achieve financial wellness with the ease of using just one app.

Douugh’s fintech mobile app is an excellent budgeting solution for the so-called affluent millennial market and a vast cohort of users who want to get on top of their finances as quickly as possible. By assisting this generation in spending smarter, saving faster, and investing for the long term, the app aims at improving financial fitness with a hands-off approach, empowering its customers to become the best they can be.

At its core, Douugh is not a bank in the neo nor paleo sense. That said, the company is slightly different from your typical mobile neobank and is steering away from traditional banking altogether.

The team behind Douugh believes that the current business model operated by the banks and online banks nowadays is outdated. Therefore, Douugh uses a software-as-a-service model that encourages people to foster financial wellness while also building wealth.

Unlike traditional neobanks who take a mobile-first approach, Douugh is taking an AI-first approach to building a proprietary software platform that incorporates key banking, credit, stock trading, and even crypto features. This helps customers manage and grow their money to live financially healthier lives.

Douugh accepts deposits straight from its customers, and in this way, it’s viewed as a neobank. However, the key difference is that this Aussie fintech isn’t a licensed bank and doesn't sell traditional bank products.

Instead, Douugh partners with banks to provide deposit-taking possibilities and a balance sheet. Essentially, Douugh prides itself on being a SaaS business, a true fintech that has established traction at the forefront of change, disrupting the status quo of financial institutions.

Doough: Funding and IPO

Headquartered in Sydney, New South Wales, Douugh has established a fair market share in the Australian market. The company was recently listed on the ASX and is registered under the ticker ASX:DOU.

Its stock opened with an IPO share price of A$0.03 on September 1, 2020, and raised A$6M at a A$28M valuation.

Douugh has seen tenfold growth in the share price since listing. As a result, they have raised a total of $22.5M in funding over four rounds. The latest funding happened on March 28, 2022, from a Post-IPO Equity round.

Shifting Sands in Global Fintech

Douugh is created for customers who want to simplify their lives through financial consolidation in one app, from budgeting and saving to investing. The company uses technology to create a more intuitive banking experience that can open doors to significantly attractive market opportunities.

That said, Douugh has recently laid the groundwork in the world’s largest consumer demographics as well - that is, the United States - through partnerships with existing banks and Mastercard.

According to Douugh’s CEO Andy, Australia is a more mature market than the US regarding banking, although the latter is ahead in some regards.

This is mainly because Australia is more tech-centric while banks in the US market are still stuck dealing with cheques and cash society. And they still commonly charge overdraft fees when spending more money than you have in your bank account. As such, you can quickly lose track of your balance.

Fortunately, Douugh has the regulatory backing to scale up in that addressable market by partnering with key banks to provide better assistance around money management. Therefore, US millennials can rest assured that their financial situation can comfortably cover all of their needs.

Having gained an early foothold in the major addressable market, it gives Douugh a front-row seat to where it can make a difference in global fintech. Along with the broader market opportunities, the company is future-proofing by bridging from centralized banking services to decentralized finance and cryptocurrency.

What’s Next for Douugh?

The Aussie fintech Douugh exists to elevate your relationship with money by helping you spend wisely and save regularly. Over time, you can build long-term wealth by making smart investments instead of getting stuck in a paycheck-to-paycheck lifestyle.

Analyzing customer behavior and feedback, Douugh is set to unlock new monetization opportunities by implementing new features that will allow for better automation. That way, this fintech company will meet the ever-changing expectations of the affluent millennials and help make the world financially healthier.

The company views Australia as a key strategic market for research and development while aiming to scale up in the US market and beyond. Since they are operating as a global banking platform from day one, Douugh truly believes in reaching 100 million customers by 2030, thus showing the world that Australia can produce world-class fintech.