BUX, Europe’s fastest growing mobile brokerage company, based in Amsterdam and London, has raised $80m in a funding round led by Tencent and Prosus Ventures.
Additional new investors included ABN Amro Ventures, Citius, Optiver, and Endeit Capital. Existing investors HV Capital and Velocity Capital Fintech Ventures.
The neo broker business is booming. After the successful launch of BUX Zero in Belgium and Germany, Europe’s largest neo-broker is set to continue its geographical expansion and roll out its commission-free investment app BUX Zero. With interest rates at all-time lows, young people are especially eager to start investing. Over the past four months, BUX Zero saw its assets under management more than triple. Last year, the number of active users grew six-fold.
Alongside this, the company is announcing a new CEO. Founder Nick Bortot is stepping away and Yorick Naeff, an early employee of the company who had been the COO, is taking over. Bortot will remain a shareholder and involved with the company, which will be using the new investment to expand its geographical footprint and its tech platform and services to users, said Naeff in an interview.
Tencent, operator of Chinese super app WeChat, and Netherlands-based Prosus led a funding round of US$80 million that BUX will use to expand its zero-commission investment platform, BUX chief executive Yorick Naeff said in an interview. The Amsterdam-based company will also hire more staff, especially software engineers, and adapt the platform for different European markets, he said.
According to reports, BUX Zero has more than doubled its assets since January, and its active customer base increased six-fold over the past 12 months. With interest rates at all-time lows and struggling pension systems, there is an increased demand for investing especially amongst the younger generations.
“BUX is the only neo-broker in Europe that offers zero commission investing without being dependent on kickbacks or payments for order flow. This ensures that its interests are fully aligned with its customers,” said Alex Leung, Assistant GM at Tencent, Strategic Development.
Zero commission is not the only incentive. The mobile economy is booming. Traditional online brokers offer apps, but only as an extension to their websites. The mobile generation needs an all-inclusive investment app, like the BUX app.
For some further valuation context, another big player in trading in Europe, eToro, in March announced it was going public by way of a SPAC valuing it at $10 billion. (Note: eToro is significantly bigger, adding 5 million users last year alone.)
“When I was a child, the way my parents would encourage me to build up wealth was through a savings account,” said Sandeep Bakshi, Prosus Ventures head of Europe investments, in the same interview. “If you do that today, you will lose money in Europe with the negative interest rates, so the average individual needs to participate in equity markets.”
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