At the beating heart of Arbol is an idea about community.
One side includes underprivileged students, who lean on Arbol to develop a financial plan that helps them succeed in college and beyond.
The other side includes benefactors who are looking for a way to give back, whether that means supporting their alma mater, boosting future members of their profession or helping people of color traverse the challenges of early adulthood.
Following last year’s debut, the founders of the Buffalo-based startup say they’re getting good at the student side. They’ve gone from a handful of participants in the fall to more than 40 now, all while keeping the group consciously small. They are accepting new clients mostly through word-of-mouth, as students share the experience with each other.
Arbol helps those students build detailed financial plans and connects them to resources that help pay for things like transportation, computers and tuition.
Soon Arbol will unveil $1,000 micro-grants to support those students.
It’s part of a long-term roadmap that involves helping them build credit and manage their finances as they enter workforce
“It’s more than a budget,” co-founder Favio Osorio said. “We’re helping the students acquire financial knowledge as we build the budget with them.”
Osorio is in the process of transitioning out of his role at M&T Bank, where he met co-founder David Gonzalez. Gonzalez moved onto startup Kangarootime before starting Arbol. The duo is working closely with Villa Maria College, which has been a key partner in building a business that is complementary to internal student affairs, academic affairs and financial aid departments.
Gonzalez and Osorio are working with a handful of contractors and expect to hire a few employees this year, including a founding software engineer. That engineer will be tasked with starting to build out a suite of software tools optimized for Arbol’s business.
But the immediate goal is building out its network of people who support Arbol students. The company – which moved away from its initial crowdfunding model earlier this year – now works with an outside nonprofit that helps manage its philanthropic arm. Individuals can make tax-deductible donations into specific buckets – say a school, an area of study or a certain demographic population – and those funds are disbursed in the form of microgrants to the students.
The microgrants are designed to supplement outside income – specifically designed to push students below the 25-hour-per-week threshold, which is a tipping point in keeping them in school, Gonzalez said.
They are hosting an event June 2 to showcase their company to the community.
“We are strategically inviting different groups in so that we can demonstrate the impact we’re having in the community and start converting them into supporters of our network,” Gonzalez said.
Arbol recently wrapped up a WeFunder equity crowdfunding campaign, pulling in $60,842 from 48 investors. The company works with UB’s Cultivator accelerator program – through which it is preparing to receive a $50,000 investment – and with Launch NY.
There’s still a lot of work to do, but Osorio and Gonzalez say they’re starting to see their idea take life.
“This is the first step in giving students the foundation that they need,” Gonzalez said. “We’re reimagining financial services for people who need it most.”
Arbol is among 10 local companies to confirm a growth-oriented capital raise this year. The other ones are Circuit Clinical ($29 million), PostProcess Technologies ($5 million), VeriTX ($4.5 million), HELIXintel ($3 million), ShearShare ($2.3 million), Patient Pattern ($2 million), BetterMynd ($1 million), Cahill Tech ($375,000) and AireXpert ($125,000).
