Australia’s commission-free brokerage app Stake has acquired $30 million in capital from Tiger Global and partners of DST Global in order to support the firm’s expansion into European markets.
Stake provides retail investors with access to over 4,400 US stocks and exchange-traded-fund (ETFs), along with analyst ratings and price targets from Wall Street companies.
During the past year, Stake has managed to expand its user base more than 6x, and it also introduced services in the United Kingdom, Brazil and New Zealand. Stake now has over 330,000 clients, globally.
Matt Leibowitz, Founder and CEO at Stake, stated:
“We’re really excited to get to this point but it’s just the start. We set out to change the game for retail investors and were self-funded for the first four years of our journey. We’ve proven the model and now have the chance to expand our product and bring our zero-brokerage service to more retail investors.”
As covered last year, TrueLayer and Stake had formed a partnership to speed up the transfer of money in the brokerage market. Customers of Stake, a brokerage app, are able to use “Payments Initiation” to transfer money to quickly make investments. The arrangement was said to be one of the first of its kind.
Mandated by the EU’s Open Banking-style regulation PSD2, Payments Initiation is a way of transferring money in a more efficient manner.
As noted by Stake’s management:
“Our mission drives our focus to put the US stock market at the fingertips of investors and traders around the world. To achieve this, we push the boundaries with innovative technology and systems. We listen to our customers. We only work with partners who share our attitudes and we don’t compromise on safety and security.”
The Stake team also notes that they aim to democratize global share markets in order to bring the world’s largest and “most dynamic” market (with 6,000 US stocks. 2,000+ ETFs and $31 trillion market cap) to the rest of the world.