We’ve been keeping an eye out for finance related startups featured at this year’s TechCrunch Europe‘s GeeknRolla event in London.
It looks like there were 2 presentations by finance startups:
CuteFund
CuteFund is a “crowdsourced mutual fund” – therefore, unlike traditional funds, it has no fund manager. The investors in the fund choose which stocks are picked to make up the fund. Starting from as little as £100, CuteFund says it aims to make the mutual fund industry more transparent and efficient.
CuteFund is a crowdsourced mutual fund. Like any old-school mutual fund, it buys and sells stocks on behalf of the investors. The main difference is that CuteFund doesn’t have fund manager. All the investors can vote for stocks, votes are weighted and averaged, so we buy the best stocks and sell the worst ones instead. There are certain situations when crowd can do better than experts. Think Wikipedia, which has less mistakes per article than experts-made Britannica. You can check Wikinomics or the book The Wisdom of Crowds by James Surowiecki for those and other inspiring examples, but what we are trying to say is that people tend to know more than they think they know, and together they can make the right decisions.
Their CEO, Andrei Korobeinik says that CuteFund is “two times cheaper” than traditional funds, and more efficient thanks to the “wisdom of crowds”. I should imagine that many star fund managers would disagree with that.
The site is currently in testing, as they await a licence to start accepting investments – it would appear that CuteFund is currently based on the US stockmarket, although the terms & conditions state that use of the site is subject to the laws of England, Scotland and Wales, so we’re a bit unsure what market it’s targeting.
More at TechCrunch.
StrippedFinance
StrippedFinance is a “social media platform for personal finance that allows consumers, finance professionals and companies to come together in a secure place tailored for regulatory and financial business processes.” Eh? Perhaps this from their website will help:
StrippedFinance is a professional network for those in the consumer finance industry. StrippedFinance is a straight-talking, easy to access and ethically conscious alternative to the current channels of financial service sales. We want to enable financial advisers to be straightforward and market their products through an honest, reputable and trustworthy platform.
As well as finance professionals, the site is also aiming to get consumers onboard to find advisors and interact with them via text and video messaging.
Like CuteFund, StrippedFinance is currently in testing. More at TechCrunch.
Hey,
I don’t know how I feel about a fund not having a fund Manager. Have you ever heard the expression that says ‘If it’s everyone’s job then it’s nobody’s job?’
I just feel that in a set up like this, no decisions will get made, and if they do, they may not be in everyone’s best interest.
Interesting concept though,
Cheers,
Guy