These female founders are building a financial app just for women

Martina Gstöttmayr and Alexa Cotiaux want to encourage women to finally take care of their finances. The waiting list for their app is already long.

The fact that Martina Gstöttmayr and Alexa Cotiaux are on the video call together this Friday is, like so many things in the start-up scene, down to chance. A few months ago, they were each working on their own business model centered around women; it could have been something along the lines of a career. However, they found each other through their network, spoke on the phone, it was a good fit and they threw themselves into their initial research.

Many interviews with women later, they emerged a few weeks later, a little exhausted, but also with a clear result: "The biggest pain point for women is not their career," says Martina Gstöttmayr, "it's definitely the topic of finance. Women need to finally take action."

In fact, studies show that women still don't take enough care of their finances. According to a large-scale study by Swiss bank UBS, in most relationships the topic of finances is still the responsibility of the man, many are not properly involved and often experience a nasty surprise in the event of a divorce, for example, and this applies across generations. However, not only in relationships, but also in general, women save and invest differently, as surveys conducted by Finanz-Heldinnen and Barkow Consulting, among others, show. According to the survey, the proportion of shares held by women is lower than that of men and their savings behavior does not lead to "long-term wealth accumulation".

Most women are well informed, but still don't act

So is it a lack of knowledge that prevents women from preparing for the future? What is certain is that women often take a long, in-depth look at their finances, which also explains the success of blogs such as "Madame Moneypenny", which now reach a large audience with financial tips for women. And the small survey conducted by the Uplyvt founders also shows that women do inform themselves, sometimes even in great detail. "But in the end, they don't do anything. That's where the gap is. They lack the support they need to take the final step and take action," says Alexa Cotiaux

The two women want to solve the problem with their start-up Uplyvt, which they have set up in recent weeks. Due to their backgrounds, they do most of the work themselves. Gstöttmayr has already worked in various start-ups, which helps with development, while Cotiaux is a former management consultant for digital models and has experience in setting them up. Where they can't get ahead themselves, the network helps out. "Without the network, we wouldn't be where we are now," says Alexa Cotiaux.

We do digitally what the financial advisor used to offer.

Martina Gstöttmayr, co-founder of Uplyvt

Uplyvt is an app that is specifically tailored to the financial needs of women. Customers should receive regular reminders and specific tips when it is time to act. To this end, the preparation of the information is to be geared more towards the needs of women: "We want to provide much more explanation for the implementation of financial decisions and also map factors other than just returns," says Martina Gstöttmayr.

The app is also intended to show scenarios of what could happen to the money if the customer were to choose option A or option B. "We want to show what consequences each action could have," says Gstöttmayr, "so that the women have a better idea of what their actions, or lack of action, could trigger."

The waiting list for the Uplyvt app is long

Uplyvt will not initially allow users to trade and buy securities, for example. Instead, users will more or less have a digital advisor at their side. "We will do digitally what the financial advisor used to offer," says Gstöttmayr. How they want to price this service is not yet entirely clear, but they can imagine a subscription model with monthly costs of three to ten euros.

First of all, however, the app has to be finished. They want to test an initial version with selected users, gather feedback and develop it together with customers. There is already a waiting list for this and it is extremely well filled, even without a major campaign, as the founders report. In general, the feedback on social media has been very positive. "I think we've found a good niche," says Cotiaux, who is also aware of the competition. "We're certainly not the only ones building a solution like this," she says.

One question remains: will they one day include men in the app? "I don't want to rule anything out," says Gstöttmayr, "but there's actually enough for men. We see enough potential and challenges with a focus on women."

Female Founders Week 2021

This article is part of our special on female entrepreneurship in Germany.

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