Crowdcube announced today that UK based financial technology company Freetrade has received £5.6m in funding on their opening day from more 7,000 individuals.
Since the pitch became available for investment yesterday, Freetrade is well on its way to reaching its maximum funding target and has made it the largest equity crowdfunding campaign to be completed in the UK for 2020.
The company has been given a pre-money valuation of £140,000,000 on its Crowdcube funding page.
Venture capital firm Draper Espirit completed a Series A investment in Freetrade back in 2019 with the funding round raising £1m in 77 seconds making it the fastest ever raise on Crowdcube.
The raised capital will be used to fuel Freetrade’s accelerated growth and presumably expand their team to manage the increase of users on their investment platform.
Freetrade joins a list of other notable investment rounds still going through during the COVID-19 pandemic with open banking API platform LUXHUB raising €7.4m and FinTech Previse raising $11m.
Freetrade, based out of their London HQ, allows for everyday investors to place trades on a broad range of stocks, shares, and ETFs in a commission-free trading manner.
Freetrade’s service is currently only available in the UK, the Netherlands, and Ireland with the funding round being used to help the company have their platform ‘be available everywhere in the EEA soon’.
The Freetrade app is currently used by 150,000 customers which is a record high after seeing a 500% growth over the past 12-month period with trading volumes on the app doubling through February and March.
Coronavirus has led to an increase in the amount of trade being executed due to the volatility it’s created in the financial markets which is a probable reason for the apps accelerated user growth.
Freetrade states they’ve seen a record number of signups, customer deposits, and investment activity on a daily basis helping them grow their user base from 25,000 people to 150,000 people in quick succession.
Freetrade was founded by Adam Dodds when he relocated from Canada to the UK and Davide Fioranelli in 2015 who both wanted to provide an investment platform that had the users experience at the heart of the business and application.
Freetrade doesn’t charge for trades taken, have any charges for a basic account, and no exit fees compared to other brokers with higher pricing models.
Freetrade does plan to launch what is expected to be a premium account called ‘Freetrade Alpha’ with details not yet known apart from its in development – another aspect the funding will likely help with.
The funding round will be closing either when it becomes fully funded or on 12th June.
[…] Freetrade raises £5.6m on the opening day of crowdfunding […]