Brandon Krieg and Ed Robinson, two former Wall Street co-workers at Macquarie Group, left their high-paying jobs to launch Stash. The app hopes to make investing simple for the everyday user.
The two Wall Street veterans went around the streets of New York gathering research data from the everyday person. They asked the tough questions to those polled. The two came across a similar pattern: people kept saying, “I’ll do it later when I’m rich.” A surprising number of people stated they want to invest, but they said it was confusing.
Stash was launched in October 2015. The company’s app allows people to invest with as little as $5 into low-cost ETFs.
An ETF is an exchange-traded fund. These funds hold assets, such as bonds, commodities and stocks. This is a well-rounded, easy way for the non-investor to begin investing with lower risks and costs.
Stash starts users off by asking a series of questions to understand how much risk an investor can make to offer recommendations on investments in a personalized fashion.
Users will always have the final say in which investment they’ll choose. Stash will provide guidance along the way to allow non-investors to have an easier time investing their money and growing their wealth.
The platform will show users their entire portfolio value, how much they’ve made since investing and their total return in percentage.
Users can choose among 30+ ETFs.
The app will also send notifications and recommendations on how users will be able to better manage their portfolios. The company has over 215,000 users and secured $9.25 million in Series A funding in August. The company has secured a total of $12.25 million in funding and employs 25 people.
Users can begin using the app for as little as $1 a month.
The company is adding more than 10,000 users per week and expects to double its users in just six months.
Moderate and conservative ETFs are recommended, or an Aggressive Mix, depending on the user survey filled out upon signing up. The app is a hit among college kids who don’t have much money to invest, but can invest $5.