Investa raises £700k as it prepares to launch UK-based options trading app

Investa, a UK-based company that offers commission-free stock and options trading products, has successfully raised more than £700,000 in its first crowdfunding campaign launched on February 25.

Having closed an oversubscribed round early due to demand, Investa is looking to advance its vision for options trading in the UK.

“Only 2% of UK investors trade options.”

Investa has built a commission-free listed options trading app for on-the-go trading in the UK and will use the £700,000 million raised to maintain development pace and expand marketing operations ahead of the launch of the trading app.

“It is estimated that only 2% of UK investors have traded options compared to 20% in the US, so there is a clear opportunity to fill this gap,” said Co-Founder and CEO Alec Beasley. .

“With Investa, we want to make the options market more accessible. The tremendous interest in our first crowdfunding campaign proves there are investors who want what we have to offer.”

Investa was co-founded by former Citi Alec Beasley and former Freetrade Ian Fuller.

Chief executive Alec Beasley co-founded Investa last year after working in equity derivatives sales at Citibank for nearly three and a half years. He brokered options trading primarily to institutional investors.

Investa’s Chief Technology Officer is co-founder Ian Fuller, the former CTO and co-founder of Freetrade, a highly successful UK-headquartered trading platform. There, he scaled the app to over 800,000 users, achieved high MAUs, and scaled from 800 engineers to multiple cross-functional teams of 20 engineers. He also launched an in-house event sourcing books and records platform with fewer than five engineers. Ultimately, Freetrade became the second largest retail broker (by trading volume) on the London Stock Exchange, managing hundreds of millions of assets by the time he left.

Investa’s crowdfunding campaign met its funding goal in less than 20 hours and was 200% overfunded in less than 500 weeks. The round closed three days early after reaching capacity. More than 200 investors participated in the round.

The campaign previously raised over £10,000 from a group of serial entrepreneurs, traders, financial market leaders and hedge fund CEOs, bringing the total raised to £18,000.