Headspace is one of the private companies Freetrade users often look for to invest in
Hey y’all (I used to live in Texas),
I’m Steph, Freetrade’s PR & Communications Manager. I joined the team in February and have been eagerly diving into all things Freetrade - finding stories, mingling with media and diving into our data. But shamefully, until now, I hadn’t written my first post in the community. Here we go!
While digging into our treasure trove of data, I’ve found a few tidbits that I think you’ll enjoy. One of our most compelling data sets is our search data. This outlines the stocks our users look for on the app: all the stocks we have, as well as stocks from markets we’ve yet to add and quite a few non-public companies too.
Looks like Freetraders are hungry for investments that haven’t gone public yet!
So we thought we’d run through a few of the top private companies searched for on the app and some of the trends we’ve found.
Fintechs
Not too surprising, but our users are VERY eager to invest in UK fintech.
For example, our search data showed massive interest in Monzo, Starling Bank, OakNorth, Revolut, Stripe, Nutmeg, and yours truly, Freetrade. Don’t worry Freetraders, you’ll be able to invest in us again shortly. 
Crypto Companies
Our users also showed some interest in crypto.
What stood out to us was that our users were looking for crypto companies, as well as just currencies.
Two big exchanges, Coinbase and Kraken, saw lots of searches (alongside cryptocurrencies like Stellar Lumens and Bitcoin.) Clearly, we’ve got some HODLers on our hands!
Ethical Businesses
Ethical investing is on the rise and our data reflects this.
The two biggest ethical private companies our users were after are Beyond Meat and Oddbox. It’s intriguing that in these two cases, that our users are attracted to companies that are changing the world for the better and coincide with a cultural/tech trend - businesses that are creating sustainable products for the long-haul.
It’ll be interesting to see how this evolves over time as we grow our stock universe.
This one’s a little different but we also saw searches for Headspace, a meditation app that promotes mindfulness and well-being. They aren’t solving the climate crisis or driving down meat consumption but they are rendering positive change in the world and maybe helping us cope better with all those other big problems too. 
Crowdfunding Platforms
And finally, we have the two biggest crowdfunding platforms in the UK, Crowdcube and Seedrs. It’s not surprising that our users are drawn to the crowdfunding space, given our community was initially grown from our very first crowdfunding round.
Super cool to see our users wanting to invest in other investment platforms via our investing app. 
So nice to finally make an official appearance in the community! Stay tuned for future updates.
.