How Finary Turned YouTube into Its Growth Engine

Five years ago, Mounir Laggoune set out to solve a problem. Like most founders, problem-solving tends to be personal. An area or niche that would remain an inconvenience for most but is more of an obsession for others. 

For Finary, the target was Mounir’s own lack of reasonable online options to look after and grow his money. Five years ago, he took the plunge alongside cofounder Julien Blancher to build a fintech company that could do what traditional banks and financial services products couldn’t do. 

As Mounir puts it: 

“I believe that the best founders solve their own problems. I found that managing my finances was way too complex and expensive. Since you cannot improve what you don’t measure, I started by building a comprehensive dashboard to track my assets with my cofounder, Julien.”

Now, Finary is an AI-powered wealth management platform and app that allows users to track a wide range of assets, including stocks, crypto, real estate, and gold, in one place. Recently turbocharged by a €25 million Series B investment led by PayPal Ventures, alongside support from, you guessed it, Speedinvest, Finary is on a journey to disrupt personal finance and wealth management in Europe and beyond. 

“As we scaled, we realized the deeper problem is about trust and education. It’s not just a dashboard; it’s guidance, action, and confidence,” Mounir said. “That’s why Finary evolved from a portfolio tracker into a one-stop shop for money: tracking, budgeting, investing (crypto and life insurance today, investment, brokerage, and retirement accounts to come), expert advice, and a community that learns together.”

If gatekeepers won’t give you a microphone, build your own

Armed with the knowledge that trust and education are crucial to customer adoption, Mounir and team also quickly learned that what they were building was needed directly from the customers they were trying to attract. 

“There were two clear signals. First, when people started telling us, ‘Why doesn’t this exist already?’ that’s the strongest validation you can get.” 

Timing also played an important role.

“COVID accelerated retail investing dramatically: in France, over a million new investors entered the stock market. We saw usage skyrocket because suddenly, people needed a tool to track and understand their investments,” Mounir said. 

To leverage the demand and provide potential customers with the financial education they were seeking, Mounir turned to YouTube and started to analyse real users’ portfolios live, creating a bridge between education, entertainment, and the company’s product. 

“Our YouTube content became a turning point. That was proof we were solving a problem people really cared about.” 

Currently, Finary’s YouTube has 75 million views and over 580k subscribers, connecting Mounir directly with Finary’s users. 

The success of the company’s YouTube channel has actually become a learning experience of its own for the business. Rather than attempting to spread itself thin over multiple social media and distribution channels, Finary focuses on quality over quantity.

“We ran a lot of growth experiments that failed,” Mounir adds. “What we discovered is that it’s better to have one or two very effective channels, as opposed to 15 mediocre ones. Today, we mostly focus on YouTube and social ads.”

Finary’s approachability and relatability have now become one of its greatest strengths, leveraging social media to grow its reach. For Mounir, it’s also one of the biggest learnings from five years of growing a business. Rather than waiting for permission to do what feels right for your company, just do it. 

“If gatekeepers won’t give you a microphone, build your own,” he added. “Everyone told me that money was taboo in France, and that YouTube was for children. I didn’t listen and built the largest French-speaking finance channel in a few years.”

Chase the Right Market

Finary’s decision to begin life in Europe has also paid off. As discussed with fellow French founder Kenneth from Opal, being deliberate with your initial market can be make or break for many businesses. Opal decided to go solely for the US market, but for Finary, disrupting the archaic French wealth management market came from a realisation that there was more opportunity closer to home. 

“One tough trade-off was deciding where to focus geographically,” Mounir said. “After going through YC, we could have gone all-in on the US market early. But our investors reminded us: you should start where it’s easiest to win. For us, that was Europe, less competition, more time to prove product-market fit.”

After beginning in France, Finary is using its latest investment round to start scaling its offering elsewhere in Europe, adding more customers to its growing platform. Having been supercharged by the Covid-19 pandemic, investing and money management have never been more in vogue. 

“Looking back, it was the right call, even though scaling in France was very hard,” Mounir added. “The lesson was: don’t just chase the biggest market, chase the right market where you have the best odds of building momentum first.”

Building a Team for the Future

Now with a team of over 50 staff, Finary has been built on scaling fast and growing quickly. The company is continually expanding its staff in Paris, but Mounir is clear on his hiring philosophy. 

“I often hear that building a company is all about the team. That’s actually not true - it’s about having the right team.”

 “We have a very simple philosophy when it comes to hiring: optimize for grit, passion, and craftsmanship. Our motto when interviewing candidates is “if it’s not a hell yeah, then it’s a no”.

Finary’s approach has helped the company grow to around 600,000 users. More talent will be needed as they look to launch innovative new products like a brokerage account, investment accounts (PEA), retirement accounts (PER), alongside expanding the company’s wealth management offering, Finary One.

In addition to wanting to hire only the most enthusiastic team members, Finary remains committed to quality. 

“Hire only the best,” Mounir adds. “As a CEO, your job is to find the best people, give them an inspiring vision, and let them figure out how to achieve it. Do not compromise on quality.”

Finary’s journey has been defined by clarity of purpose and the willingness to do things differently, whether that meant building a YouTube audience instead of chasing other channels, focusing on Europe instead of Silicon Valley, or refusing to compromise on talent. Each decision reflects a consistent principle: growth follows conviction.

Now, as Finary prepares to expand across Europe, that same conviction continues to guide Mounir and his team. The lesson is simple but hard-won, scaling fast doesn’t come from following the crowd, but from knowing exactly which problems are worth solving, and doing so with focus, trust, and a bit of defiance.

The key drivers of Finary’s success come from Mounir’s laser focused vision and idea of how to build a company. From this personal drive, Finary is set to grow beyond one market and help thousands more manage their wealth. 

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