Lightyear, a U.Ok. fintech startup that guarantees customers commission-free buying and selling on U.S. and European shares, is formally extending into Europe from right this moment.
To energy the enlargement, which can see Lightyear land in 19 new markets, together with the Baltics and far of Western Europe, London-based Lightyear has additionally raised $25 million in a Seres A spherical of funding led by U.S. enterprise capital agency Lightspeed, with participation from different notable backers together with Virgin Group, which counts Richard Branson as its sole shareholder.
Buying and selling shares
Lightyear is one in all a number of burgeoning inventory buying and selling firms to emerge on the scene, promising a simple inroad for most of the people to speculate their cash in a few of the world’s largest firms, from Apple and Alibaba, to Spotify and Tesla. On high of that, customers can spend money on what are referred to as change traded funds (ETFs), that are basically funding funds.
Launching out of stealth initially within the U.Ok. final yr, Lightyear has entered an area that features native incumbents such because the well-funded Freetrade, to not point out long-established gamers on the opposite facet of the Atlantic equivalent to Robinhood, which canned its U.Ok. launch plans again in 2020.
Lightyear touts its large USP as being its enterprise mannequin, insofar because it doesn’t cost account charges or commissions on any trades. As an alternative, it depends purely on overseas change charges — however even then, it solely prices 0.35% on conversions exceeding £3,000 ($3,500) monthly. However as soon as a consumer has transformed, they then maintain their cash in a neighborhood forex account from which they proceed to commerce with out incurring any additional charges on every commerce that they make.
In some ways, that is just like how different fintechs equivalent to Smart (previously TransferWise) work, permitting customers to obtain and pay cash in a number of currencies with out incurring exorbitant charges. And this similarity is greater than a coincidence, on condition that Lightyear is the handiwork of early Smart workers Martin Sokk and Mihkel Aamer, whereas Smart co-founder Taavet Hinrikus can be a Lightyear investor.
Lightyear founders. Picture Credit: Tom Harrison
A number of Lightyears
Issues might get a tiny bit complicated given the multitude of startups which have launched lately with the very same title. There’s one other U.Ok.-based fintech referred to as Lightyear, although it’s centered on bookkeeping, whereas the closely VC-backed Dutch startup referred to as Lightyear is all about electrical automobiles. And let’s not neglect about New York-based Lightyear, a telecom service procurement service.
However that fascinating quirk apart, Lightyear (the inventory buying and selling one) seemingly has ample differentiators to face out in what’s a crowded area, with the promise of simplicity and transparency at its core. And fewer than a yr after first launching to early U.Ok. customers, it has now ramped up its potential consumer base by an order of magnitude.
Lightyear’s enlargement consists of the next markets: Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Eire, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia and Spain.