TradingView, a UK-based financial information platform and social network, raised a $298 million funding round led by Tiger Global Management, according to Bloomberg.
The company says it is profitable and plans to use the funding the expand its brand globally, with hopes it can grow its services from direct-to-customer to include partners and integration with major brokerage platforms.
TradingView now has 29 million monthly active users of its stock charts and other services, according to TradingView General Manager Pierce Crosby. The funding round brings TradingView’s total funding to over $338 million through seven rounds, including the company’s previous Series B of $37 million led by Insight Partners in mid-2018.
“We’re excited to be partnering with Tiger Global. Their global fintech expertise and insights will contribute significantly to furthering TradingView’s vision of informed financial trading and investing for the world,” TradingView co-founder and CEO Denis Globa stated in the release.
“We built this company with the belief that people everywhere want the same thing: to be in control of their own economic futures. We work towards this by creating an environment where all traders and investors can Look first / Then leap,” he said.
The platform posted a 237% increase in visitors, a 400% increase in membership accounts and over 550 million unique visitors from 180 countries over the past 18 months, according to CityAM. These figures, as well as the company’s new valuation which tops $3 billion, highlights a rise in retail investing during the pandemic.
This increased activity has been linked to a number of factors, including the pandemic pushing people out of work and into their homes and the GameStop saga which flooded retail investing apps with new users. A Charles Schwab survey showed that 15% of retail investors in April began investing in 2020, according to CNBC.
TradingView isn’t the only retail investing platform utilizing a hybrid concept with social media aspects included. Public.com, a US-based retail trading platform, also leans on social hierarchy concepts in its platform and recently raised a $220 million Series D in February.
These funding rounds by TradingView and Public show the method works, drawing in everyday investors with retail investing’s growing hype, and then hooking them to stay with community forums and social media communication.
Victoria Chow, Communications Lead at Public, says that while a large number of traders joined due to “meme stocks,” a significant portion are still active in the market and have gone on to build a diverse portfolio.
“81% of people who bought a meme stock actually went on to build a diverse portfolio, which I think pushes beyond some of those stereotypes,” Chow said.