Babylist built a $750 million registry empire. Now it’s betting on ‘Trump accounts’ for kids

When Babylist’s founder and CEO, Natalie Gordon, was growing up, she wasn’t always excited about opening her Christmas and birthday presents. Every year, members of her family—especially her grandmother—would contribute money to her college fund. Today, she’s grateful they did. “On a personal level, it was really meaningful. The experience shaped how I view long-term gifting,” Gordon says. Now, her baby registry company —which has built a $750-million-a-year business helping parents create and distribute registries, order items from retailers, and receive them when they want—is trying to get customers to adopt her family’s behavior at scale. The first step? Helping parents and sponsors set up so-called Trump accounts. The new accounts are more formally known as 530A accounts after the relevant section of the Internal Revenue Code. They let parents and sponsors of children born in the U.S. create an investment vehicle for them that will not be taxed annually. Children born between January 1, 2025, and December 2028 can also receive a $1,000 contribution from the Treasury Department to give them a head start. Families and employers can contribute a maximum of $5,000 annually to the fund, which the child can access only when they turn 18. The app for these accounts launched yesterday , built by Bank of New York Mellon and Robinhood. (In the future, parents will be able to roll them over to other financial institutions.) Parents can enroll at Trumpaccounts.gov , and will be able to begin funding them in July. For many parents, the process of setting up one of these accounts and contributing to it can be daunting. That’s why Babylist launched a money hub in mid-2026 with all the information parents need. “The information around these accounts has rolled out very slowly. It’s been confusing not only for eligible families but for the entire financial services industry. Even industry leaders didn’t have clear answers,” Gordon says. [Image: Babylist] An information and gifti