A Value-Driven Visionary
Celebrating Charlie and the acquisition of Frank, the startup making student debt a thing of the past
The end of calendar year 2021 was a whirlwind. As the Omicron variant spread and many Aleph portfolio companies continued to raise rounds of funding over Zoom, Charlie Javice, founder and CEO of Frank, hopped the first flight to Israel so we could celebrate the acquisition of Frank face-to-face.
As the Aleph partners sat with Charlie for lunch to celebrate JP Morgan’s acquisition of Frank, we reminisced and chatted about our long relationship and the path to Charlie’s success.
Tackling the Scourge of Student Debt
I was introduced to 19-year-old Charlie Javice some 10 years ago by then Bloomberg reporter and now CNBC reporter Dominic Chu. Chu had interviewed Charlie when she was selected to be a Thiel Fellow but turned it down.
Chu and I had become friendly over the previous couple of years, and he called me one day and said, “I met a young woman who I think you ought to meet with and perhaps mentor. She is Jewish as well.”
Charlie and I had coffee just outside of Grand Central Station in New York. Maybe I had a drink and she had a coffee. I was inspired by her vision of helping college students build a better life by financing their education in a right-sized and appropriate manner so that they did not spend the rest of their lives in debt. Student debt is a scourge because of the lack of information available and the archaic process of applying for financial aid. I was blown away by the social startups Charlie had started in college at the University of Pennsylvania, and by her missionary zeal to solve this problem. It was also right up my alley of “values create value.”
Charlie was young enough to be my daughter and, in fact, offered to take my oldest daughter out for a whirlwind tour of Manhattan, including shopping and manicures. When my daughter returned, she told me that Charlie was something special (although she hated the color Charlie picked for the manicure). I trust my daughter’s view of people (and for what it’s worth, Charlie told me later that she hated the color my daughter chose).
From Mission to Acquisition
After launching PoverUp, her first non-profit, in college, Charlie founded her first company, TAPD, which ultimately became Frank. Charlie is relentless and kept her eye on the North Star. Her vision was to help more Americans pay for college with the level of debt they could actually afford and, more importantly, help students tap into all the federal funds at their disposal. She helped streamline the federal FAFSA bureaucracy to a point where everyone could truly get access to the right amount of financing they deserved for college.
Charlie knew from the very beginning that if her thesis played out, her company would be invaluable to legacy financial institutions that were losing out on the next generation of customers. She built a trusted financial brand, made waves with the US Department of Education that resulted in key policy changes for American families, and scaled the company fearlessly against all odds at a time when there were almost no female VC partners or founders.
I was not surprised that the company was acquired by the largest bank in the US. It was acquired for its mission, and for its product, but most of all for Charlie and her team. From meeting Charlie when she herself was a student, to founding Frank and empowering millions of students across America together a few years later, we at Aleph could not be more thrilled to be her chosen partner for this journey. Congratulations to Charlie and her team on an amazing home run!
