tickr

Idea

Introduction

tickr is designed for the next generation of investors. For people who want to invest, but want to have a positive impact on society and the environment at the same time.

Impact investing - investing for positive financial return alongside positive social and environmental outcomes - is one of the fastest growing areas of the investment management industry. Assets invested in impact are doubling every year, and are expected to hit $1 trillion globally by 2020.

And this structural shift is being driven by millennials. They are 2X as likely to invest in a portfolio that reflects their values and beliefs, and 86% of millennials are interested in investing if a portfolio could be aligned to what they believed in. Impact investments strive to achieve this.

But yet, there is still no convenient way for retail investors to invest with impact.

tickr has been built to fill this void, bringing impact investing to everyone, and making it the default option for the next generation.

Intended impact

tickr's team is driven by a clear vision: to make impact investing the default option for millions of people.

Investing is a buying decision. With millions of people making conscious buying decisions each month, by investing in companies addressing some of the world's biggest problems, the positive ripple effect this can create is potentially enormous. In the long run, we believe it will inspire existing companies to adopt better practices, and it will encourage new companies to come along to address global issues in a sustainable and profitable way.

The focal point of the in-app experience will be based around the companies that our users are invested in. Through a visual and interactive news feed, our users will learn about the positive things the companies that they are invested in are doing around the world. This brings our users closer to the companies they are invested in, and gives them another reason to invest, beyond just risk and return.

Substantial accomplishments to date

In September 2018 we raised an initial round of £860K from figures in the investment management industry, based in Europe and the US; we were also backed by SLJ Investment Partners, based in The Netherlands.

Since this time, we have achieved the following:

- Launched on both iOS (Dec 18) and Android (Feb 19) and have 1,000s of users across both platforms

- Built a young and diverse team of 11 full-time, all based in the UK. All tech, marketing, branding and design is done in-house. The core team is supported by a network of advisors in the fields of tech, impact investing, risk and global digital marketing.

- FCA regulated as an Appointed Representative.

- Announced as Tech Nation Rising Stars winner for 2019 in March 2019

- Announced in the Wealthtech 100 in April 2019 - an annual list of the world’s most innovative wealthtech companies

Monetisation strategy

Our business model today is straight forward: we charge everyone the same flat fee of 0.70% per annum on assets under management.

In the future, we expect additional revenue lines will come from the launch of tickr branded ETFs. They will be free to use in-app for tickr users, and charged outside of the app for retail and institutional investors.

We consider the ETF revenue line to be a natural extension of what we are building, with ETF theme ideas sourced from and invested in by our user base, before launching them outside of the app to be bought by retail & institutional investors. We understand that there are no specialist impact/sustainable ETF creators currently in Europe, and we believe that we are well positioned to fill this void in a large and fast growing market that intersects the rise of passive investing with the demand for sustainable & impact ETFs.

Use of proceeds

There are three main areas of focus following our raise on Seedrs:

1) User acquisition - we will continue to build our user base and executing on our growth strategy.

2) Product improvement - we have a wave of new features to bring out, some of which are built and ready to go, and some which need completing. The funds will enable us to bring these forward.

3) Team expansion - the proceeds will enable us to expand the team with a few key hires, including increasing our tech resources to speed up product iteration.

This will pave the way for our Series A, which we expect later in 2019/in early 2020.