For press & media.

Boilerplate

The following may be reproduced verbatim.

Short. Maslow is a software and systems company building shared digital infrastructure for member-owned financial institutions — credit unions, cooperatives, and mutuals — worldwide. Rather than competing with these institutions, Maslow connects them, providing the shared technology, coordination standards, and governance that no single institution can build alone. The two halves of the work are deliberately separated: Maslow Holdings builds the infrastructure; the HAPPI Foundation, a not-for-profit, holds it — so the network can never be captured or sold out from under its members. Returns to investors are bounded by design — investors underwrite the build, not the perpetual operation.

Extended. Finance shapes how societies function at every scale — who gets capital, who keeps it, where it flows, and who benefits. 88,000 member-owned credit unions, cooperatives, and mutuals are operating globally, structurally designed to keep capital in the communities it comes from. They represent the only financial infrastructure in the world built to build wealth for communities rather than from them. And they are losing ground — not because they lack purpose, but because they lack a shared and values-aligned operating layer. That is what Maslow builds: infrastructure, not products. A shared interface institutions can deploy without dismantling what they have; interoperability standards so they can plug in without bespoke integration; shared financial utilities — pooled liquidity, shared risk frameworks, and capital products beyond any single institution’s reach; and a governance architecture that keeps power distributed and prevents capture by any one actor. It is a missing layer that no extractive actor can provide without ceasing to be extractive. The work runs through two entities, built in parallel and designed to invert: Maslow, the commercial, time-bound build entity, and the HAPPI Foundation, which holds the Covenant from day one. Participating institutions retain their licences, their boards, and their community relationships. Maslow is structured to exit into steward ownership: once capped investor returns are met, ownership of the Company transitions to the HAPPI Foundation.

Fact sheet

• Entity. Maslow Holdings Pty Ltd · ACN 672 433 519 · Melbourne, Australia.
• Founded. Founded in Melbourne in 2020, building on the lessons of a previous fintech, and re-incorporated in 2023 to capitalise its post-pandemic strategy as the city emerged from the world’s longest COVID-19 lockdown. The company’s consumer phase was backed by A$409,676 from 288 aligned investors in a 2024 crowd-sourced funding round — raised with virtually no digital advertising spend.
• The fieldwork. The coordination failure thesis that defines what Maslow builds was produced through 57 days of global fieldwork. Three banking partnerships failed during Maslow’s first phase — none through Maslow’s execution. Volt Bank and in1bank each handed back their banking licences after proving unable to raise capital. A joint-venture partnership with a credit union ended after Maslow reported concerns about the conduct of one of that organisation’s executives to the organisation — which subsequently opted to sell its banking business rather than invest in a rejuvenation strategy. The failures were diagnostic: they revealed a structural truth no amount of planning could have surfaced — that mission-critical financial infrastructure cannot be built on the ongoing viability of third-party licences. The thesis was not researched at a distance; it was paid for in the field.
• Status. Post-fieldwork, pre-build: the thesis is complete, the Constitution — including the return cap — was adopted 10 April 2024, and the current raise capitalises the build. The HAPPI Covenant is held by HAPPI’s four originating Stewards and kept under annual review; term, renewal, and succession protocols are being finalised ahead of the assembly of HAPPI’s first full Stewards cohort. At raise close, the HAPPI Foundation registers and the MVP scope is locked with the founding cohort, with a functioning product targeted roughly eighteen months from raise close.
• Founders. Kane Jackson, Co-Founder & Chief Executive Officer — pioneered Australia’s first actively managed app-based derivative fund at his first fintech in 2015; a 2025 Byron Fellow; led the five-country fieldwork producing Maslow’s coordination failure thesis. Mina Calvert, Co-Founder & Chief Technology Officer — previously Digital Banking Platform Lead at Westpac and Head of Development at Constantinople; the technical architect of Maslow’s shared interface layer, interoperability standards, and integration frameworks. Caitlin Robinson, Co-Founder & Chief Operating Officer — previously Operations Manager at Ambulance Victoria, coordinating 500+ personnel and state-wide emergency healthcare resources.
• Structure. Capped-return, structured to exit into steward ownership. Investor returns are capped under the Company’s Constitution (Rule 35, adopted 10 April 2024), with the cap stepping down at each successive raise. Once capped returns are met, ownership of the Company transitions to the HAPPI Foundation, the not-for-profit that holds the infrastructure as a global commons.
• What it builds. Infrastructure, not products. Four layers, one federated system: a shared interface institutions can deploy without dismantling what they have; interoperability standards so they can plug in without bespoke integration; shared financial utilities — pooled liquidity, shared risk frameworks, and capital products beyond any single institution’s reach; and a governance architecture that keeps power distributed and prevents capture by any one actor.
• Commitments. Maslow takes nothing that belongs to the institution — no equity, no deposits, no lending decisions. The infrastructure is shared. The institution remains the institution.
• The sector. 88,000 community-owned financial institutions. Three million cooperatives. A billion members. Credit union numbers fell roughly 10% globally in 2024, the steepest annual decline in years.
• Sources. Sector figures draw on statistical reporting from the World Council of Credit Unions and the International Co-operative Alliance. A full source list is available on request.

Quotes for use

Attributed to Kane Jackson, Co-Founder & Chief Executive Officer. Both may be reproduced verbatim.

“Extracting from communities has ruined the world. Wealth, resources, and decisions have been stripped from the places that need them by mega corporations and billionaires who decide our fate without experiencing it. It’s made life hard for most, less hopeful for many, and what’s left is dividing us all.

“The solution to that extraction is cooperation, which division makes impossible to build. Luckily, we don’t have to build it. It already exists, in the biggest unconnected system on earth: 88,000 community-owned financial institutions, 3 million cooperatives, a billion members, each keeping wealth where it’s made, serving the people and places that depend on it — circulating it, improving with it, and using it to enhance life. Maslow exists to connect that system, and put it at the heart of our society — to put community, and life, at the heart of the global economy.”

For technology and business press:

“Enshittification is what happens when users don’t own anything. The future isn’t a better platform — it’s community ownership, community decisions, and community governance. The technology is the easy part.”

The name

The company is named after Abraham Maslow. That naming carries a history it is responsible for acknowledging — and a tension it is committed to sitting with honestly. Much of what is associated with Maslow’s “hierarchy of needs” has direct antecedents in Blackfoot teachings, in which self-actualisation is the foundation on which community actualisation, and then cultural perpetuity, are built — not the apex. The company’s two-word slogan — Together. Thriving. — was chosen in direct contradiction to the hierarchy attributed to Maslow, and in respect of the Blackfoot teachings from which it was drawn: that human flourishing is collective, that the collective is the foundation, not the summit. The full statement, its sources, and the company’s Acknowledgement of Country are on the Acknowledgement page.

Brand assets

• Wordmark — navy on transparent (PNG, 2400px) — for light backgrounds.
• Wordmark — off-white on transparent (PNG, 2400px) — for dark backgrounds.
• Social card (PNG, 1200×630).

Please do not alter the wordmark’s proportions or recolour the full stop. Photography and interview availability are provided on request.

Media contact

Media spokesperson: Kane Jackson, Co-Founder & Chief Executive Officer. Use the press route on the Get in touch page — please include your outlet, the nature of your piece, and any deadline you are working to. Every enquiry reaches a person on the team within two business days. You can also contact us directly.