Social media changed everything from news consumption to shopping. Now, You b It is clear that it can do the same for investments by an influencer operated market on which users can follow the trades of top investors with just a few taps. Consider it as a Tikok hits the Wall Street.
Dub was founded by Steven Wang-a Harvard dropout, who invested in the second class with his parents’ blessing. With the app, users can follow the strategies of dealers, hedge funds and even those who imitate top -class politicians. Instead of making individual trading decisions, DUB users can copy entire portfolios.
The concept hit a chord. Dub has already exceeded 800,000 downloads and imposed $ 17 million In seed financing – with a new round apparently in the works. It is less clear whether Dub can avoid the pitfalls of earlier fintech startups.
Inspired by Gamestop
Retail investments have developed dramatically in the past two decades. The days of 7 dollar trade commissions and chunky brokerage interfaces were blown apart about a decade ago by mobile phone platforms such as Robinhood, which invite people for free trade. At the same time, social media is changing how people and especially members of Gen Z make financial decisions.
When Harvard student during the Pandemie one, who “couldn’t really do anything from his dormitory”, Wang believed that these two trends, retail investments and influencer-driven decisions, on a collision course. Between the Gamestop saga, Elon Musk’s ability to “move the markets of Dotecoin and Bitcoin with every tweet” and the willingness of the people to “really follow ideas and individuals to a whole new level”, decided to get out and dub in 2021 to build up.
The average user of the platform is currently between 30 and 35 years old, says Wang, although the DUB based in New York clearly finds its way in front of an even younger audience. In the past few weeks, the 15-year-old has asked this publisher more than once about “Investing like Nancy Pelosi” after having marinated on Instagram in DUB ads.
Pelosi does not personally act with Dub. It is just a dealer on the platform that reflects its open movements. Nevertheless, the idea caught fire. “Nancy Pelosi rose by 123% by 123% with Real Capital,” says Wang.
Dub is not free. Wang was determined to achieve income from the start, and DUB does this today with a subscription model of $ 10 per month. Wang continues that some “top” portfolios in the platform -load management fees and DUB take a reduction in these fees by 25%.
In the meantime, DUB has partially scaled through organic growth. “Creators who are good dealers in the app are suggested to bring their audience,” says Wang, whose parents emigrated from China and grew up in Detroit.
DUB also invests aggressively in advertising and is strongly in Meta ads to purchase users, also on Instagram. “We were really lucky that the wider American population really believes that there are other people who have an advantage over them when it comes to the investment world,” says Wang.
Fighting words
The question now is whether Dub will follow a similar way to other rapidly growing fintech startups, many of which have been in the crosshairs of the supervisory authorities. Robinhood disturbed the finances by making the trade free, but it was also confronted before the IPO of 2021 and ultimately a function that users shower Digital confetti Every time they were trading.
Dub says it is very interested in avoiding the same mistakes. The company worked with Finra and the SEC for more than two years before starting, and made sure that his model met the financial regulations. “We not only navigated the regulation in Dub – we accepted itPresentWang says. (Like Robinhood, Dub is a fully licensed broker dealer.)
A large award, argues Wang, is that Dub is designed in such a way that they inform users and not only promote blind speculations. The platform shows risk reviews, risk-cleaned returns and portfolio stability indicators to help investors make sound decisions, he says.
He suggests that it is safer for investors than Robinhood. Wang says: “I have great respect for the (CEO) Vlad (Tenev), which frees the trade. But at the end of the day it is really only to be easy for the wider population without acting without education without any education. ”
In order to underline his point of view, Wang refers to the decision of the Robinhood -together with Coinbase and other stock exchanges -to make the Meme -Coin Trump available for customers before President Donald Trump. While it initially rose in the price, the price has dropped since then. Wang says: “I think the incentives are just wrong between these large platforms that are now public companies that have to make money” and that “in general” their customers have “probably lost money”.
(Worth mentioning: in a separate, Recent conversation With Robinhoods Tenev over Dub, Tenev Techcrunch suggested that the copy trade could be of greater interest for the supervisory authorities and that DUB may not yet be under the “magnifying glass” due to its comparatively lower size.)
In both cases, not everyone is sold in Dubs vision. The biggest blow against Such platformsAccording to critics, stock winding investments in the long run investments in the pimple selection.
It is a criticism that Wang is familiar with – and to which he quickly pushes back. On the one hand, he argues that many such studies are “cherry picked”. (“I bet, many of which are sponsored by the passive investing index companies,” he says.)
According to Wang, there is a reason why actively managed hedge funds like Citadel thrive. “If you look at what the ultra-rich can do, give Ken Griffin from Citadel your money (because you have no correlated returns every year,” he says.
If you continue to investigate the growth of the hedge fund room and the asset management space, “Wang continues,” there is a reason why it is growing. It is because you make money for your customers. “
