Friday
January 28
2022

Founders Fund Backs Vest, a Startup Out to Give Latin Americans a Bridge to Investing in the US Stock Market

By  Mary Ann Azevedo

Latin Americans seeking the ability to invest in companies trading on the Nasdaq and New York Stock Exchange now have a new option in Vest, a startup that has launched a mobile-first brokerage app with zero-commission trading in the Americas.

CEO and co-founder Aaron Polhamus said he, Miguel Arroyo and Jaime Rodas were driven to start Vest in December 2020 because of their belief that while Latin Americans work hard for their savings, “historically their savings have not worked hard for them.”

To help remedy this problem, Vest aims to provide direct access to U.S. equities investments to retail investors in all major economies in Latin America, as well as in the United States. Today that means the startup operates an active brokerage so that users may buy stocks listed on the NYSE and Nasdaq. But soon the company plans to expand its platform to include a passive investing product (robo funds) and crypto. It plans to have both the active and passive products built with the same user interface so that investors “can use both strategies in the same place, rather than having the fragmented, multi-platform experience that is the norm today,” said Polhamus, who is the former CTO of Mexican fintech Credijusto.

Source: TechCrunch (link opens in a new window)

Categories
Finance, Investing
Tags
financial inclusion, fintech, startups