[Funding alert] Stocktwits raises $30M, to launch in India by Q2 2022

New York, US-headquartered social media platform for retail investors and day traders, Stocktwits, has raised $30 million in a Series B round led by Alameda Research Ventures. The global investment and venture arm of the Times of India Group, Times Bridge, also participated in the round as a strategic investor to help the company expand its services to India.

Other investors in the company include ffVC, Foundry Group, Social leverage and True Ventures.

Stocktwits allows investors and traders to track conversations around asset classes like stocks, crypto, and other investments. In 2019, it also launched Trade App, a commission-free online brokerage services app for US stocks for its community members.

Apart from global expansion, Stocktwits is looking to utilise the capital to expand the coverage of asset classes on its platform and grow its business model beyond advertising-based revenues. The company aims to partner with different trading platforms and investment platforms down the line to add new revenue streams. 

The company was founded in 2008 by Howard Lindzon and Soren Macbeth.

“Even today, 75 percent of our audience is US-based. The real vision for Stocktwits is to be a global platform and crypto has become pretty big for us as well,” Rishi Khanna, CEO of Stocktwits told Yourstory.

He further added that when the company was considering going global, before the onset of COVID-19, India was among the top-five global destinations the company wanted to expand to.

“If we're not in India, then we have no business being a global platform. The Indian youth really have an opportunity to be global influencers in the investing markets. Markets are converging, and everyone has access to the US markets and assets like crypto are global in nature. Given the size of youth in India, the decision to expand was a no-brainer,” said Rishi, CEO of Stocktwits. 

The company currently has seven team members as part of its India operations and plans on expanding the team in 2022.

The India operations are overseen by Singapore-based Shiv Sharma, vice president of international operations at Stocktwits. The company plans on ramping up India operations by second quarter of 2022 and is also working on growing its influencer base in the country across channels such as YouTube, Twitter, and others. 

In India, regulators do not permit copy trading on the lines of eToro or Zulu, which allows retail investors to copy the trading pattern of an influencer with a proven profit record.