London fintech startup launches social media platform for investors

New fintech startup Lightyear today announces the launch of Lightyear Profiles, a way for investors to share high-level details about their portfolio with friends.

It creates individual and personalised web pages for each user showcasing their portfolio holdings, recent activities and which stocks are on their watchlist.

Talking about money has often been a taboo topic. A survey last year found 75 per cent of Brits are uncomfortable talking about money with friends and family. However, this is something which Lightyear wishes to dispel.

Lightyear has built Profiles, which is the company’s first expansion into social investing tools, believing its potential to make learning about investing far more accessible and an easy way to stay connected with friends on investment journeys.

Martin Sokk, CEO and co-founder at Lightyear, said: “Our goal has always been to build a platform that’s cognitively easy to use, has the best customer experience and helps people become the best investors they can be.

“People are having conversations about investing far more frequently now, and we wanted to give them the tools to be able to structure those discussions, create their own communities and make it easier for them to share.”

Nishil Parekh, product at Lightyear, added: “As a product builder, I spend a huge amount of time with customers to understand how they are approaching investing and what drives them. Something has become very apparent recently: more and more people are talking about investing with their friends.

“It can be really intimidating to make that first investment, or to even know where to start, and the dialogue between friends is proving to be a catalyst that we wanted to build into the product.”

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