UK start-up Freetrade raises $15m, inc. first-time investor Draper Esprit
The UK challenger stockbroker Freetrade has closed $15 million in a Series A funding round with a contribution from its first capital investor.
The start-up will be pushing out extra marketing and content to reach more millennial customers
With a $7.5 million investment from Draper Esprit, a European tech-focused venture capital firm listed in London, the fintech has now raised a total of $15 million alongside previously announced equity crowdfunding on Crowdcube.
CEO Adam Dodds also tells TechCrunch the start-up will be pushing out extra marketing and content to reach more millennial customers in a bid to educate them on the market and dispel the preconception that investing in the stock has to be expensive or complicated.
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“Freetrade is on a mission to open up investment opportunities for everyone, as are we,” says investor Draper Esprit’s CEO, Simon Cook, in a company statement. “In this sense, their mission is totally aligned with our own, as a rare tech-focused VC listed on the stock exchange. The company have shown exceptional growth in the short time since they first launched the platform last year.”
After becoming the first fintech authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) to launch fractional trading for UK-listed shares and exchange traded funds alongside its US ones earlier this year, Dodds tells City A.M. the company will be rolling these out in thFreetrade, he first quarter of 2020.
With the likes of US-founded Robinhood already launched in the UK and Australia-founded Stake on the cusp of its UK launch, Freetrade is in a race to be first to the UK market.
It’s also interesting to note the rivalry between Freetrade and Revolut, which launched fee-free stock investing in August 2019. Not only is the stockbroker’s new investor also an investor of the challenger bank, but its CTO and co-founder André Mohamed moved to Revolut to become its new head of wealth and trading product.
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