Openai has acquired ROI, an AI-powered personal finance app. In line with recent trends in the AI industry, only CEOs are jumping.
Chief Executive and co-founder Sujis Vishwajis announced the acquisition on Friday, and sources familiar with the matter told TechCrunch that he was only one of the four ROI staff members who joined Openai. The terms of the transaction have not been disclosed. The company will end its operation on October 15th and will end service to its customers.
The ROI deal marks the latest in this year’s Openai’s series of acquirers, including Context.ai, Crossing Minds and Alex.
It is not clear whether ROI’s technology will move to Openai or which unit Vishwajith will join, but it clearly matches Openai’s bet on personalization and life management as the next layer of AI products. ROI brings a specialized team already trying to solve financial personalization at scale. This is an assignment that allows the lesson to be applied more widely.
New York-based ROI was founded in 2022 and raised $3.6 million in early stage funding from investors such as Balaji Srinivasan, Spark Capital, Gradient Ventures and Spacecadet Ventures. Its mission was to aggregate the financial footprint of users, including stocks, crypto, defi, real estate, and NFTs into one app that could track funds, provide insights and help people make transactions.
“I started ROI three years ago and made investments accessible to everyone by building the most personalized financial experience,” Vishwajis wrote in X’s post.
Beyond transaction tracking, ROI has given users access to financially savvy AI companions who responded in ways that made sense to them. When signing up, users can personalize their ROI by providing information such as what they do for their livelihood, how they respond to them, and more.
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In the example where ROI posted to X, the sample user wrote: In response to a question about the status of a user’s portfolio, Roi responded:
Exchange highlights the philosophy behind ROI and its co-founders. Software not only provides general answers, but also requires adapting, learning and communicating in ways that make you feel personal, human and most importantly.
As the ROI team wrote in a blog post, “The products we use every day do not maintain a static, prescribed experience. They become adaptive, deeply personal companions who understand us, learn from us, and evolve with us.”
That vision will be dominated by the efforts of Openai’s existing consumers, including Pulse. The Sora app is a Tiktok competitor filled with AI-generated content, including personal cameos from users. Instant Checkout is a feature that users can purchase and purchase directly through ChatGpt.
The deal also occurs as Openai Beefs of Openai Beefs Up, a consumer application team led by former Instacart CEO Fidji Simo. It’s even more signalling that Openai is not only trying to become an API provider, but also wants to build its own end-user app. ROI talent and technology will help you slot these apps quickly and make them more adaptable.
Vishwajith worked at Airbnb alongside co-founder Chip Davis, and developed tips to optimize user behavior to drive revenue. Due to his account, a simple change to the 25 lines of code led to more than $10 million in additional cash.
Being able to generate meaningful revenue through consumer apps is more important than ever for Openai as it continues to burn billions of data centers and infrastructure to drive models.
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