MoneyLion CEO Talks Recent Earnings & Aspirations To "Own Culture of Money"

Dee Choubey is Chief Executive Officer at MoneyLion ML, a financial technology company that offers a suite of products spanning banking, borrowing, saving, and more. Choubey recently took retail investor questions about MoneyLions’ Q4 earnings, business priorities, and competitive advantages via the Public.com investing platform. Here’s an exclusive recap of the Town Hall event for Benzinga readers.

You recently shared your Q4 2022 earnings. Can you talk about progress made toward profitability and other key takeaways?

Dee Choubey: One note up front: as we are going through the financials, please note that, unless otherwise stated, I will be referring to our non-GAAP adjusted results. Please see the Appendix in our earnings release, available on our IR website, for our GAAP results and reconciliations of each non-GAAP measure to the comparable GAAP measure, as well as additional information regarding our key performance metrics.

Great question. As mentioned in our earnings report, Q4 2022 was our fourth consecutive quarter of Adjusted EBITDA improvement. On slide 27 of our earnings presentation, you can see that we’ve narrowed our Adj. EBITDA loss consistently from $32 million in Q4 2021 to just $6 million in Q4 2022. Moreover, we reached positive Adjusted EBITDA in December 2022. This is all a testament to our commitment to driving profitable growth, which we continue to prioritize in 2023.

You recently (3/14) reported revenue growth of 99% YoY. What were the main areas of growth, or to what do you attribute the revenue jump?

DC: Our total Adjusted Revenue growth for the full year of 2022 was 99% year over year. MoneyLion has historically demonstrated high top-line growth, so this is part of our DNA. In fact, for the three years ending 2022, Adjusted Revenue has grown at an average rate of 100%+ per year. As it relates to 2022 specifically, in addition to growing our Consumer business, we added our Enterprise business through the acquisition of Even Financial, now Engine by MoneyLion, which closed in Feb 2022. This diversified our revenue mix, which we see as a differentiating factor relative to our peers across different economic and market environments. 

What gaps exist in traditional banking products that you believe MoneyLion is able to fill in a unique way?

DC: One gap that exists is the lack of effective communication around different financial products and personalized recommendations. At MoneyLion, we’ve invested in engaging, relatable, and enjoyable curated content that allows users to learn and discover new ways to improve their relationship with money. 

You’ve talked about MoneyLion’s aspirations to own the “culture of money” in the United States. What are some things about our existing culture of money that you are hoping to improve or change through your platform? 

DC: At our investor day, MoneyLion’s CMO Cynthia Kleinbaum and MoneyLion’s Chief Content Officer Jeff Frommer discussed 1) that there is a massive financial literacy problem in the US, and 2) that most people are turning to social media for advice today. MoneyLion seeks to address this problem by providing friendly, easily digestible education for every money decision right within our app.

Looking ahead, what are the top 2 or 3 priorities that you and the team are most focused on? Is there a hero metric or KPI that you’re optimizing for? 

DC: We have been laser-focused on profitability, which we generally track as our Adjusted EBITDA metric. As a reminder, we noted on our Q4 2022 earnings call that we expect positive Adjusted EBITDA for the full year of 2023.

In what ways have you expanded the business over the past few years? 

DC: Great question. We have expanded the business quite significantly over the past few years, most notably through the acquisitions of Malka Media (completed in Nov ‘21), which provides the foundation for our consumer content strategy I discussed, and Even Financial, now Engine by MoneyLion (completed Feb ‘22),  which provides the leading embedded finance marketplace solutions that also powers our Marketplace. Malka and Engine comprise a sizable portion of our overall business and are strategically critical to what we are building for the future.

What are the possibilities for the growth of Fintech? Do you see any areas that could be innovated?

DC: There are so many areas that are ripe for disruption in our view. If you think about other industries, it becomes more clear. Consumers can order food from their phones, they can find a ride to the airport using their phones, and can even find a date using their phones. When you think about traditional banking and financial services, a lot of it is done the same way it was done a long time ago. So at a high level, there are many opportunities for innovation in fintech for years to come.

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Public.com members can view the full Q&A in the app. Open To The Public Investing is a member of FINRA and SIPC. This content is not investment advice. Investing involves risk of loss.

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