OpenAI buys fintech startup Roi

OpenAI has acquired Roi — an artificial intelligence-based app for personalized financial management. The deal was another example of «acqui-hire» in the industry, with only co-founder and CEO Sujit Vishwajit moving from the entire Roi team to OpenAI. The service will close on October 15, and terms of the deal were not disclosed.

This isn’t OpenAI’s first such acquisition in 2025 — the company previously acquired Context.ai, Crossing Minds and Alexa. All of them reinforce OpenAI’s strategy to create personalized and adaptive consumer services.

Roi was founded in New York in 2022 and raised $3.6 million in investment. Its idea was to gather all of a user’s financial activity — stocks, cryptocurrencies, DeFi, real estate and even NFT — into one app that could track capital, give advice and help trade. An important feature was maximum flexible personalization: users themselves set the communication style and behavior of the AI-assistant.

For example, one of Roi’s case studies looked like this: a user asked to be treated «like a Gen-Z spokesperson, use a minimum of words and banter». In response to a $32,459 portfolio drop, the assistant wrote: «Bro, you’ve been unfollowed. Because of the new rates, it’s minus today. But given your risk profile, maybe this is a chance to stock up on the dip».

Roi’s approach reflects a philosophy: software should not just produce dry data, but should adapt to humans, communicate «humanly» and hold attention. This is in line with OpenAI, which is already developing Pulse (a personalized news feed), Sora (a TikTok analog with AI content) and Instant Checkout (shopping directly in ChatGPT).

Fiji Simo, the former CEO of Instacart, has been appointed to lead OpenAI’s consumer apps division. This is especially important for the company: in addition to the API business, it needs new revenue streams, as it costs billions to maintain data centers to run the models.