BUX, a growing European retail brokerage, announced on Thursday the closure of its latest funding round, raising $80 million, along with some other key management changes.
The funding round was led by Prosus Ventures and Tencent, with participation from ABN Amro Ventures, Citius, Optiver and Endeit Capital, all of which are new investors. Additionally, existing investors HV Capital and Velocity Capital Fintech Ventures raised their stake in the brokerage startup.
New CEO Takes Charge
Apart from the funding, the company appointed Yorick Naeff, BUX’s previous COO, as the new Chief Executive. He replaced Co-Founder Nick Bortot, who will now be a non-Executive Board Member.
BUX is offering a zero-commission brokerage platform, much like the American giant, Robinhood. The offerings of the platform range from stocks to Cryptocurrencies .
The fresh funding came when demand for BUX’s services was increasing heavily as the platform gained more than 500,000 users, jumping six-fold in a year. Moreover, the assets under management with BUX Zero doubled in the past three months.
“Younger generations in Europe now realize that investing is one of the few viable ways left to create a stable financial future,” Naeff said.
Meanwhile, the Amsterdam-headquartered startup is focused on expanding its regional and international footprint. It has already launched BUX Zero in Germany, France, Austria and Belgium, and now it has plans to further expand across Europe.
“With this new funding round, BUX will continue to spearhead innovation by implementing advanced features to further shape the future of how Europeans invest,” the new CEO added.
“BUX is the only neo-broker in Europe that offers zero-commission investing without being dependent on kickbacks or Payments for order flow,” said Alex Leung, assistant GM at Tencent. “This ensures that its interests are fully aligned with its customers.”
