This Startup Wants To Help Every Site Launch A Trading Platform

When traders visit Scutify.com and click on the colorful trade icon, they will be given the option to sign up for a brokerage account. That account isn't from any old brokerage -- it comes from Tradier. "Tradier is for online trading what PayPal is for online payments," Dan Raju, co-founder, chairman and CEO of Tradier, told Benzinga. Raju described Tradier as an "API brokerage." The company doesn't offer a brokerage in the traditional sense of the word. Rather, Tradier provides an API that developers can use to add a trading platform to their existing website. "The kind of product we offer is actually an API," Raju explained. "What we do is disintermediate all the traditional ways that companies use to launch investing/trading platforms for the retail investor. We are a brokerage API that provides…execution and market data all in a simple API to [build a trading platform on top of]."

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Since Tradier provides the API, it can step back and "let other companies build trading applications" -- including social and mobile -- "without having to do all the heavy lifting on its own." "The user experience is always associated with your brokerage account," Raju added. When a website integrates with Tradier, users can log in and start trading without having to leave the site. "We have completely embedded Tradier's brokerage on our platform both on the sites and the apps," Cody Willard, chairman of Scutify, told Benzinga. "I use Tradier to trade on Scutify daily." Willard said that he was "blown away" by how easy Tradier is to use. "Tradier made Scutify a one-stop shop for trading," he added. "The beauty of Tradier is, we were able to take their API, their technology, and embed it, integrate it, fully into our site."

Fast-Growing Startup

Raju said that Tradier is growing fast and is in the process of adding another 40 providers that will utilize its API. "We are completely cloud-based," said Raju. "Totally a technology-driven, self-service operation on the cloud. We are a revenue-generating, extremely fast-growing firm." Tradier previously raised $3.1 million in a Series A, but the company does not have any plans to go back for more. Disclosure: At the time of this writing, Louis Bedigian had no position in the equities mentioned in this report.