Shares.io is a Paris-based social investment platform that gives everyone access to the stock market and improves the investment experience by letting users engage with an active community. In a recent development, the company announced its UK and European expansion plans and closed its pre-seed investment round.
UK launch in 2021
The company intends to deliver its “investing made social” service and invites subscribers to join the waitlist for the planned UK launch of the Shares app this autumn. Also, it anticipates a wider rollout across Europe in early 2022. It has announced that the Shares app will be available on both Google Play Store and Apple App Store.
Currently, the Shares app is not regulated to provide financial services in the UK. By signing up to the waitlist, you are agreeing to be notified when the app is approved to provide such services.
Raises £7.3M investment
Besides this, Shares has achieved one of the largest-ever seed fundraising by an early stage startup in Europe by raising $10 million (nearly £7.3 million) in the first, pre-product seed round. The round was led by CEO & Co-Founder Benjamin Chemla, serial entrepreneur with a track record that includes co-founding Stuart in 2015.
Furthermore, the VC backers include Singular and Peter Thiel’s Valar Ventures, early investor in Fintech Unicorns N26, Wise, and Bitpanda. André Mohamed, Co-Founder of Freetrade, Didier Vallet, ex Deputy CEO of Société Générale, Chris Adelbach, Managing Partner of Outrun Ventures & UKBAA Angel Investor of the Year, and Ryan McKillen, Founding Team of Uber are current business advisors.
Shares will use its recent fundraise to continue to scale at pace on a mission to empower users with tools that open doors to first-time investors and increase financial inclusion.
Benjamin Chemla, CEO & Co-Founder of Shares commented: the product as an “Building Shares wouldn’t have been possible without the seasoned team of scaleup experts we’ve assembled across the business to achieve this product, in record time, without sacrificing quality. There is still untapped market opportunity in this high-growth fintech space and Shares is uniquely positioned as Europe’s first social and investing app to fast become a leader in the industry.”
James Fitzgerald, Founding Partner at Valar Ventures and VC supporter of Shares said: “Valar invested in the team at Shares with confidence in their ability to overcome the technical challenges and execute the project in a matter of months to get to market. Congratulations to Shares for executing the launch of Europe’s first social-focused investing app – a feat of engineering, finance and regulatory know-how.”
André Mohamed, Co-Founder of Freetrade applauds the vision, added: “Shares is completely different to first-generation fintech investing platforms and social – notoriously complex – has been exquisitely built into the app. By packaging what everyday traders do online into one platform, Shares is going to revolutionise how social is used for support and guidance – that’s taken to the next level with this app launch – not to mention the product roadmap ahead.”
First social investing app
Founded in early 2021 by Benjamin Chemla, Shares is the social-first platform for retail investors, designed for superior user experience and community in mind. It gives no-minimum, no-fees access to 1,500 stocks. While it plans to launch Europe’s first fully integrated social and investing app in less than a year, it eyes accelerated product development to become the go-to-market in a highly regulated industry and comply with requirements that include KYC, AML and MAR.
Shares creates a whole new investing app category where anyone, including new investors can start conversations, network and learn from friends and experts as a community together in a one-stop shop with all their portfolio management needs. Users need to pay £1 to access to invest and involves no trade fees across 1,500 US stocks.
It will let members buy stocks, react to the market in real-time, start conversations with friends and access curated expert advice in one place. In addition to the Invest platform, Shares enables community and private Chat to network, learn, track friends and grow individual portfolios from the app. Additionally, Shares’ curated market intelligence feed, Spotlight, allows Shares members to build their financial awareness and educate themselves about investing, the biggest industry trends and offer supportive guides on tax, regulation and compliance.
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