Freetrade, a UK-based no-fee brokerage platform, is looking for a GBP 650 million valuation after a fresh round of Crowdfunding , which aims to double the company’s value set at GBP 270 million in March. According to the Financial Times, the firm launched its seventh round of fundraising from the public today.
The fintech company expects to diversify its business into the cryptocurrency field. Freetrade said that the Coronavirus pandemic bolstered its valuation amid the retail stock trading boom experienced over the last few months.
These flows came from millennial traders that entered the stock trading world, which is something witnessed in trading platforms like Robinhood. “What we’ve seen over the past two years is that the theory that Europeans don’t invest and aren’t interested in the stock market isn’t true,” Adam Dodds, Chief Executive Officer at Freetrade, commented.
Moreover, he foresees a ‘battleground Europe’ among investment apps, while the company looks forward to capitalizing from the growing demand in the continent and expanding further. So far, Freetrade has 600,000 funded accounts, which has increased from the 150,000 accounts created at the start of the year, and its forecasts are set to bring over GBP 15 million in revenue in 2021.
Recent Freetrade Key Hirings
In September, Freetrade appointed Paul Brooking as the Chief Financial Officer. He has already taken up his new role earlier this month. Brooking comes with more than 16 years of experience working with several financial companies. In addition, he has spent significant time in both fintech and traditional financial giants during his career.
He joined Freetrade from Revolut, where he was the Deputy CFO and Head of Financial Control for almost a year. Before that, he was with the Paysafe Group as an SVP and Group Financial Controller. Additionally, he spent nine years of his career at brokerage giant IG in several leadership roles, parting with it as the Head of Corporate Finance. Originally, he began his career at PricewaterhouseCoopers, spending more than a decade there.
