Fintech Spotlight: How Docoh Is Empowering The Next Generation Of Retail Investors

In light of speculative commentary on online forums such as WallStreetBets, which has fueled individual stock volatility, retail investors have gained increased respect from institutional counterparts.

In recognition of those disruptive innovators catering to retail interests, Benzinga spoke with Richard Goulstone and Dan Zambonini, founders at Docoh.

About Docoh: Founded in 2019, Docoh is a fintech specializing in professional quality research for the retail investment community. The company is a pioneer, using its SaaS platform to synthesize information from data sources and provide easy-to-digest insights.

The company’s roots can be traced back to Zambonini’s time building research management systems for hedge funds.

“I was kind of realizing that all of these hedge funds say they have a secret sauce, but they don’t,” Zambonini said. “They employ the same kids, from the same schools and they do the same modeling.”

After discovering that the edge is really in data, Zambonini sought to provide the booming retail community access to actionable investment insights.

“At the same time, Robinhood, fractional shares, and fee-free trades were just becoming a thing — it was kind of a tipping point,” he added when talking about leaving his prior role to co-found Docoh with Goulstone.

After some time establishing a proof of concept — unpacking and synthesizing insights from raw data — Docoh was approached by a group of investors in Shopify Inc SHOP.

“They used the platform and they thought it had legs,” Zambonini said. “We put a pitch deck together, raised a small pre-seed round, and since then, we’ve been more focused on what we’re building.”

At its core, Docoh is a platform to empower retail investors by leveling the playing field and increasing access to quality data.

“We actually have a whole range of professionals who now use us, who aren’t in finance," Zambonini said. "We have accountants, lawyers, corporate risk managers, executive recruiters — all people who need access to Bloomberg-like information.”

Pictured: The Docoh platform’s landing page.

Core Product, Evolution: At the outset, Docoh was simple, offering users to receive alerts and a way to compare insights from different SEC filings.

“The main reason people would sign up is for email alerts when a new filing comes out,” Zambonini said.

In providing a use case, Zambonini pointed to news that Tesla Inc TSLA bought $1.5 billion worth of bitcoin. In that case, thousands of Docoh users immediately received an email about it, allowing them to capitalize on stock price volatility.

With V2, Docoh is looking to turn itself into a destination, a place where users want to spend time researching financial markets.

Tools offered include real-time news and data on company filings, insider and institutional trading, a dashboard on trending Reddit stocks, as well as charting, data on IPOs, short interest, and earnings.

“It’s all about extracting meaningful data,” Goulstone noted in reference to the comprehensiveness of the platform.

“We’re using things like natural language processing; for an executive change, we can say the CEO left because of this reason," Zambonini said. "If there’s an M&A acquisition, we can say company A is acquiring company B for this price, and that kind of thing.”

Docoh also comes in a Pro version, which was launched on Jan. 31. The added functionality allows users to observe more data for more assets, with no delay.

“For the semi-pros that use us, they want to follow 500 favorites, get filings for them, as well as sync favorites from brokerages,” Zambonini said. “For free, everything gets delayed by 30 minutes. If you’re Pro, then you get everything in real-time.”

Next Steps: Docoh is looking to expand the depth and breadth of its product portfolio, adding a more comprehensive iOS app that supports interaction amongst users.

“Retail inventors are having a much bigger impact,” Zambonini said in reference to volatility in stocks like Hertz Global Holdings Inc HTZGQ and GameStop Corp. GME. “You can’t say retail investors are just noise. Also, are retail investors working together? I’m not saying nefariously, but hedge funds and institutions work together, also.”

Docoh is positioning itself to offer users the ability to communicate amongst themselves, to share research and opinions.

“We’re trying to support better decisions … through a social layer,” Zambonini said. “I think sharing your transactions could be another thing, [and] a follow feature.”

In addition to raising funds to boost growth, Docoh will likely expand its team, allowing it to venture into new development and partnership opportunities.

“With three people, it can be tough to make progress,” Zambonini said.

To learn more about Docoh, click here.

(Photo: Docoh)