DriveWealth, a New Jersey-based startup known for building technology in a bid to promote free stock trading, secured $21 million in a recent round of investment. The Series B round of financing included Point72, a venture capital unit of Steve Cohen, Route 66 Ventures (a previous investor in the company), Raptor Group, and SBI Group. The four companies led the exercise.
DriveWealth boasts innovative technology, which offers its customers access to the stock markets. What’s more, the company’s technology operates in the background of several investment services. Currently, DriveWealth has a vast customer base with clients such as INVSTR, a UK-based stock trading app, and MoneyLion, wealth management, and lending app.
DriveWealth’s set of APIs offers technology that is designed to modernize financial services, specifically for the digital age. The startup’s cloud-based infrastructure also provides powerful pricing efficiencies and scaling to allow its global partners like digital advisors, mobile online financial service companies, and online brokers to access the US securities market flawlessly. Furthermore, DriveWealth’s technology suite enables its partners to provide native investment experiences directly on their mobile apps.
Robert Cortright, DriveWealth’s chief executive officer, said in an interview with the Business Insider that the new funds would allow the company to boost its products including the latest one that helps clients to deliver real-time rebalancing. He highlighted the company’s excitement in partnering with SBI Group, one of Japan’s foremost providers of online financial services, and the other two top investing venture companies with considerable expertise and experience in financial technology.
According to Robert Cortright, DriveWealth’s mission includes providing global partners with low cost and flawless access to wealth-building products via its modern infrastructure. The company’s solutions offer its clients native integration into their mobile applications and reimaging investing for the customers they serve.
Pete Casella, Point72’s head of fintech investments, said that DriveWealth had created a world-class, tech-powered brokerage suite that enables fintech companies to integrate a wide array of investment capabilities, especially into their product offerings. Point72 Ventures, financed exclusively by Cohen, focuses most of its investments in the artificial intelligence and financial technology space.
Point72 Ventures is known for previously leading a $4.1 M seed investment in AlphaFlow, a tech company in the real estate space. The company has also invested its money in various firms including Quantopian, a crowdfunded hedge fund, and Acorns, a fintech application that allows users to invest their spare change.
Cliff Friedman, Raptor Group Holding’s managing director, expressed Raptor’s excitement in collaborating with DriveWealth’s management team. The partnership comes at a time when DriveWealth is developing its revolutionary technologies and scales its business. The chairperson of SBI Holdings, Yoshitaka Kitao, also said that SBI was pleased to include DriveWealth to the first financial ecosystem in the world.
According to Cortright, allowing additional firms to tap more easily into equity markets has played a significant role in reducing stock trading fees. In fact, he forecasts that brokerage fees will drop to zero. Furthermore, free trading has allowed Robinhood’s valuation to reach $5.6 billion. Robinhood is a renowned investing app amongst millennials.
Source BusinessInsider
