Susie Kim (’15)

Susie is co-founder and chief creative officer of Pluto Money, a mobile personal finance app that fuses behavioral science with technology to help millennials build better money habits and reach their saving goals.

A multidisciplinary brand/product experience designer and full-stack marketer, Susie is Co-Founder and Chief Creative Officer of Pluto Money, where she leads design, branding and marketing. Pluto is a mobile personal finance app that fuses behavioral science with technology to help millennials build better money habits and reach their saving goals, so they can afford what really matters to them. Pluto was part of Startup UCLA Accelerator’s 2015 cohort, 2nd place winner at Startup Weekend Bay Area, a Global Startup Battle Startup Women Track finalist, and part of QC FinTech Incubator’s Spring 2016 cohort.

"UCLA Ventures has opened many doors for us—strong connections with other Bruin entrepreneurs, invaluable advice from its VC members, and not to mention some of our mentors/advisors," she said. "Our participation in the Startup UCLA Summer Accelerator, Bruin Entrepreneurs’ bVentures program and Sigma Eta Pi Entrepreneurship Fraternity has provided us with so much invaluable support and resources."

Susie’s expertise as a full-stack marketer, creative strategist and designer has been seen at several Silicon Beach startups. In 2012, she founded a coffee roastery franchise by combining an artisan roastery with ceramic studio based on trends from the U.S. and adopting it to the Korean market, generating over $1M in revenue.

Susie’s undergraduate education combined humanities, design and entrepreneurship. While at UCLA, Susie was an active leader in UCLA’s startup ecosystem. She was the first-generation marketing associate at UCLA VC Fund, a founding member of Startup Career Night and Bruin Startup Fair and a leader at Sigma Eta Pi Co-Ed Entrepreneurship Fraternity. Susie graduated in 2015 with a B.A. in Art History, along with certificates in Marketing (with concentration in Social Media and Web Analytics) from UCLA Extension and in Market Research from American Marketing Association.

"I had the privilege of working as the UCLA Venture’s first-generation student associate for Marketing, and my co-founder Tim was the Fund’s fellow," said Susie. "So it was only natural for us to become a portfolio member once we started our own startup, knowing all the benefits that the Fund provided first-hand."

Pluto is currently based in Mountain View and recently launched their invite-only Beta in the App Store. You can learn more about them at www.gopluto.io or www.angel.co/plutomoney.