Just days after surpassing its £600,000 equity crowdfunding target on Seedrs, Smarterly, a UK-based platform that is seeing to help users save and invest directly from payroll, has successfully secured more than £1.3 million from nearly 430 investors. As previously reported, Smarterly stated it aims to turn the UK into a nation of investors, by promoting the benefits of healthy savings habits through employers.
“We make investing simple, easy and accessible for the mass market – aiming to make buying a Smarterly ISA just as easy as buying a product from Amazon. Employers promote Smarterly as an employee benefit, to help their staff build healthy saving habits with the convenience of saving directly from their pay, often with a contribution boost from the employer as a more accessible complement to pensions.”
Smarterly uses algorithms to analyze more than 1,000 funds, build ready-made portfolios and comparison tables and then monitor each customer’s individual portfolio on a daily basis. The company confirmed:
“Our goal is to be the ‘go to place’ for workplace savings and to have 250,000 customers on our platform in 5 years. First we aim to perform a land-grab and sign up corporate clients, then we intend to focus on improving take up rates and encouraging customers to transfer existing investments.”
Recently, Smarterly formed a partnership with Neyber, the Goldman Sachs-backed lending platform. According to AltiFi, Martin Ijaha, co-founder and chief executive officer of Neyber shared:
“The expansion of our product range to include savings and investments is a huge milestone for Neyber as we continue to offer employees more options to take control of their money like never before. We are building a digital experience for employees fit for the 21st century, where the best financial products sit alongside personalised content and tools.”
Funds from the Seedrs round will be used to accelerate sales and marketing activities to take advantage of our early mover position in the workplace and to further invest in our product proposition.
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