Commonstock, a broker-agnostic social platform that “amplifies” the best-investing knowledge, has secured $25 million in capital via its Series A round that was led by Coatue, along with contributions from QED, Floodgate, Upside Ventures, Resolute Ventures, Abstract Ventures.
Commonstock’s latest investment round was also joined by Philippe Laffont, Bill Ackman, Ari Emanuel, and Michael Ovitz. Li Jin of Atelier, Turner Novak of Banana Capital, and Jill Carlson took part in the round as well.
Commonstock’s management noted that they’ll use the proceeds to further their goal of “expanding access to investing knowledge by continuing to build out its platform.”
“The era of memestocks has only underscored the need to separate signal from noise when it comes to retail investing,” stated David McDonough, CEO and founder of Commonstock.
David added:
“It’s clear that as more and more people gain access to the promise of capital markets, they need a transparent space to share knowledge and ideate, which is exactly what we’ve built. Our goal is to amplify great knowledge and insights, drawing everyone from the most legendary investors to those wanting to bring their investing skills to the next level. We’re excited to expand our platform to support even more investors and creators.”
Since Commonstock launched out of stealth in August of last year, it claims to have become a hub for retail investors, with over a billion in assets connected on the platform.
Commonstock works by connecting users’ existing brokerage accounts “to the app so that they can share their real-time portfolio by percentage (not dollar amount), performance, and trades.”
Users will get real-time alerts whenever their friends purchase or sell, so they are able to copy each other’s trades and invest together. They also have “the opportunity to participate in discussions about investment theses and industry takedowns.”
The announcement also mentioned:
“The influence of active retail investors is on the rise, now making up 15% of current U.S. stock market investors. But while technology and lower trading costs have made this possible, retail investors have no more access to investing knowledge than they did a decade ago.”
The GameStop craze earlier in 2021 helped with establishing that there’s great value in going online to “share investment ideas but more transparency and accountability are needed.”
By linking user profiles to brokerage accounts that show current performance and investments, the platform aims “to establish transparency between what a user is saying and what they’re actually investing.”