Public, the New York investing platform, said in May 2026 that it had acquired Treasury, an app that taught people long-term investing and gave finance creators a place to run their communities. Financial terms were not disclosed. A press release carried a New York dateline of May 6, and Pulse 2.0 reported the deal on May 7.
Treasury's customer accounts and assets are moving to Public. Elias Rothblatt, who co-founded Treasury with Ivar Vong, joined Public as senior director of operations, where he is working on AI-driven investing features. Public did not say whether Vong or other Treasury staff were joining.
Treasury said more than 40,000 people had used its platform and that its members had together invested more than $100 million.
What Treasury built
Treasury combined investing education with a brokerage account. Its focus was long-term investing and financial literacy, and it was built for finance creators and the audiences that follow them. A creator could host an educational community on Treasury, publish content and run live sessions, while members learned and invested in the same app.
The startup database VC Backed describes Treasury as a Brooklyn company that offered simple, non-judgmental videos and articles for the Her First $100K community. Treasury positioned the app around education first: members were meant to learn how long-term investing works and then put money to work in the same place where they had learned.
Phemex News, reporting the deal on May 6, described Treasury as an AI-powered investment platform and said Public bought it to strengthen its AI-centred brokerage offering.
“Treasury has always been about empowering investors through education and great tools.”
What happens to customers
Treasury customers will have their accounts and assets transferred to Public. Customers who do not want to move to Public can transfer their holdings to another brokerage or sell their positions and withdraw the cash.
The creator communities are not part of the move. The creator-led groups that ran on Treasury will move to other platforms to keep offering educational content and live programming. That means Public is acquiring Treasury's customers, product experience and founder, but not the community features that set the app apart.
Rothblatt said Treasury had always been about empowering investors through education and good tools, and that once he got to know the Public team and its roadmap, joining made sense. He said he was looking forward to Treasury customers gaining access to Public's AI investing tools.
Why Public is buying
Public launched in 2019 and offers stocks, bonds, crypto and options. It says investors have entrusted it with billions of dollars in assets. The company describes its strategy as building an "Agentic Brokerage", in which AI tools sit alongside access to several asset classes.
Stephen Sikes, Public's chief operating officer, said Rothblatt and his team had built a strong foundation around long-term investing and education. Rothblatt's role is to help build the AI-driven investing features at the centre of that strategy, which suggests the deal was as much about the founder's experience in teaching new investors as about Treasury's user base.
Public has raised more than $400 million from investors including Accel and Tiger Global.
The founders and the funding
Treasury raised about $2.5 million before the sale. Its backers included Bloomberg Beta and Canaan. The company did not disclose the dates or stages of its rounds, its headcount or its revenue.
Neither Public nor Treasury said how much Public paid or whether the price was in cash or stock. With about $2.5 million raised and more than 40,000 users, Treasury was a small company next to Public, and the deal adds a founder and a customer base rather than a large business.
Not the same as Public's Treasury accounts
The acquired app should not be confused with a Public product of a similar name. In January 2023 Public introduced Treasury Accounts, which let its members put cash into US Treasury bills through a partnership with Jiko. The bills were reinvested automatically at maturity and could be sold at any time.
That product is unrelated to Treasury the startup. With the acquisition, Public now owns a company whose name matches one of its own account types, and Treasury customers who move across will hold their accounts at Public alongside its existing members.
