Fintech Startup Alpaca Releases Commission-Free Trading Platform

Within the fintech space, several companies have developed new ways to trade, invest and bank. Alpaca is among the first to design a platform to combine algorithms, trading bots and artificial intelligence for investors.

The Company

The startup offers the world’s first commission-free stock brokerage for developers and bots, according to a press release.

“Alpaca is dismantling the old system of stock trading that required investors to constantly monitor stocks and enter buy and sell orders manually by introducing an automated trading platform that brings algorithms, trading bots and artificial intelligence to the individuals.”

Over 4,000 accounts have been registered on a waiting list for the platform’s imminent launch, according to Alpaca. The technology is being employed by Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, the largest institution in Japan, Alpaca said. 

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The Customer Base

Alpaca works with both QuantConnect, a trading platform that allows investors to test strategies, and Quantopian, a leading finance platform to develop algorithmic strategies.

“The majority of our users come from already existing communities and then others who are not satisfied with their existing robo-advising services. There is a vast majority of people who are doing manual trading and there’s no place to help them automate and run things as a broker,” Alpaca co-founder and CEO Yoshi Yokokawa told Benzinga.

QuantConnect serves over 65,000 users from over 170 countries, while Quantopian has a community of over 225,000 users.

“Our vision has always been about creating things to make life easier for everyone, so people don’t have to worry when trading,” Yokokawa told Benzinga. “What we have really realized is that there are many people who understand how to code and how to manipulate the coding, but there is no player that provides infrastructure to run those bots. There is nothing that caters to those needs.”

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Photo courtesy of Alpaca.