Signal from all this noise - my 2 euro cents:
Ownership - it matters who’s in your board ::
- “Freetrade is literally owned by its customers. We were crowdfunded into existence.” Thats great but top VCs provide with guidance and resources. Founder Fund (AirBnB, SpaceX), Accel (Facebook, Slack, and Spotify) are backing Trade Republic. Advice: get top VCs on board and expand into the Eu faster than competition.
PFOF stuff:
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Freetrade uses Drivewealth for US stonks… Drivewealth uses payment for order flow. How do I know? here’s what CashApp (by Square $SQ) says about Drivewealth in its legal: “We receive a portion of the payment for order flow (PFOF) earned by our carrying partner, DriveWealth, for directing your orders to execution venues. We mitigate this conflict of interest by regularly reviewing the execution quality of your orders.” see this Cash App Investing Customer Relationship Summary …
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Where do these US stonk orders go? most likely BoA Securities via Cuttone & Co… it’s all muddy, I tried to do my DD → 📜 General FT chat megathread 📜 - #14 by roman_guy
Then there’s a bigger picture - Trade Republic is a real competition, so no wonder the twitter tweets by the Ceo…
- Freetrade vs Trade Republic: both will win in this game, because the Robinhood effect - relax, unless the founders are being slow and noone wants to work for these stonk companies
- Inception: Freetrade 2016, Trade Republic 2015
- App launch: Freetrade 2018/2019, Trade Republic 2019
- Money raised: Freetrade $ 36.9 million, Trade Republic Eur 79 million (https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/freetrade-limited, https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/trade-republic)
- Backers: Freetrade - Draper Esprit and retail, Trade Republic - Peter f-in Thiel’s Founder Fund (AirBnB, SpaceX), Accel (Facebook, Slack, and Spotify!) (https://www.fintechfutures.com/2020/04/trade-republic-lands-62m-in-series-b-funding/)