European Robinhood rival Lightyear raises $23 million in funding
Lightyear application.
Illuminated
Some of the biggest names of Estonia’s technology scene support Lightyear, an initiative that wants to be the answer to Europe without commission. Robinity.
Lightyear in London develops an application that allows users to invest in more than 5,000 stocks, stock market investment funds and money market funds. In 2021, two former wise employees were founded by Martin Sokk and Mihkel Aamer.
The company will announce that it has collected 23 million dollars in a new financing tour led by Nordicninja, a European -based Japanese -supported venture fund, on Thursday. Markus Villig, who founded Ride-hailing Unicorn Bolt, also invested in the Estonian technology entrepreneur.
Lightyear CEO Sokk, CNBC’ye, the company does not need to collect more cash for the business, but because of the caliber of the relevant investors, he said.
“People like Markus are building big companies in many markets, and this is really exciting for us because it is very difficult to enter all markets and understand local dynamics and people need.” He said.
Lightyear currently operates in 25 countries. However, with the help of Angel investors such as Villig’s Villig, the company said, “Quite quickly” will launch in five markets, Sok Sokk said.
Villig told CNBC that “scaling an enterprise in more than one country in an intensely arranged industry,” and added that Europe has provided wide opportunities for the deterioration of the less advanced retail investment market.
Other Estonian angel investors who previously supported Lightear participated in the financing tour, including Checkout.com’s former WISE co -co -co -founder Tavet Hinrikus. Chief Technology Officer Ott Kukver and Skype Founding Engineer Jaan Tallinn.
Estonia is considered an important technology center in Europe. The country is home to the most unicorn horse per capita in Europe, Estonia Investment Agency. In the meantime, Estonia’s e-Haming program enabled foreigners to be digital residents and start their companies in the country.
According to two people who know the subject that prefers to remain anonymous because the information is not explained to the public, the new tour values between 200 million and 300 million dollars in Lightyear are significantly higher than their valuation in 2022.
Pushing to AI, crypto
In addition to additional financing, Lightyear is starting new artificial intelligence features. AI has been a warm investment area for beginners following the explosive popularity of productive AI services such as Openai’s Chatgpt.
One of the features called “Why Moved” allows users to select a point in a stock graph over time and see what is happening to cause a company to jump or fall to the share price. The company also uses AI to provide short updates about “Taurus” and “Bear” theses in stocks and assets in its portfolios.
When it comes to investment according to SOKK, “you will have two models”: “self -driving money”, you want a AI to achieve certain investment goals and different strategies and approaches are a “manual transmission” approach to finding on your own.
Nevertheless, the online investment products market is largely competitive. Lightyear faces a little heavy competition from both more modern technology players such as Robinhood, Revolut and Trade Republic.
However, Sokk insists that Lightyear has built a different product to be able to get out of the crowd. In a statement to CNBC, competitors such as Robinhood make a profit from offering risky products such as crypto and margin trade, while Lightyear focused on serving long -term investors.
For this purpose, Sokk said that Lightyear plans to introduce his own crypto product in two months-one of them “focused on a longer-term view”.
