Meet Sharewise, A Community For Stock Market Investing

Benzinga, a leading news and data provider, will be holding its annual Benzinga Global Fintech Awards, a day of dealmaking, networking, and recognition in the financial technology space, on November 11, 2021.

The event will award Benzinga Listmakers, those top companies part of Benzinga’s Global Fintech Index, for their accomplishments innovating, as well as merging the best of finance and technology.

In recognition of those disruptive innovators creating positive and diverse change within the financial services space, Benzinga presents Sharewise.

About: Founded in 2007, Sharewise is a community for stock market investing.

The company was founded after the founders were unable to rate the track record of analysts and trade ideas posted to online forums.

“You listen to the guy who sounds most convincing, but you have no idea how often he is right or wrong with his predictions,” cofounder Stefan Nothegger told Benzinga. “This was the basic idea behind Sharewise. A lot of people tell you which stocks to buy, but we tell you how often they are right. We make it trackable.”

In the simplest way possible: Sharewise is a community of stock market investors and analysts to share their actionable trade ideas.

Core Product: Founded at the height of the Global Financial Crisis, over a decade ago, after establishing proof of concept, raising seed funds, and procuring a development team, Sharewise partnered with online brokers.

“They became aware of us and thought Sharewise could be useful for making their investors more active,” Nothegger said in a discussion on the company’s product and growth. Core solutions offered include stock market news, company financials, stock quotes, and charting, in addition to the Sharewise social trading and education community.

The company was later sold to Minkabu, the operator of the largest social media for investors in Asia, and then re-acquired by Nothegger, among others.

The process of establishing and viewing opinions on the platform is easy; users pick a stock, state their opinion as well as supporting evidence, and post.

“You have access to the voices of the users, … the wisdom of the crowd,” the co-founder noted. “You immediately get an understanding of what people think about the stock and not just that they are bullish or bearish about it.”

Use Case, Recent Developments: In light of the pandemic, the digital transformation in finance accelerated and stock market engagement rose.

In helping investors position themselves according to new themes and trends, Sharewise partnered with several course providers.

“We integrate parts of the course materials and … we started partnering with financial clubs.”

Additionally, to play into the gamification of the industry, Sharewise added contests allowing users to pick promising stocks and win prizes if their opinions pan out.

Innovation Outlook: Stock market investing isn’t that attractive to Sharewise’s target market, Europe.

The reason being, culture and structural problems, among other things.

“Many think the stock market is gambling or bad,” Nothegger said in a discussion on increasing participation. “From a business side, we’re looking for partnerships because that’s the way we can attract more users.”

Going forward, Sharewise is looking to expand the depth and breadth of its product portfolio, helping demystify the stock market through content that is easily accessible and digestible.

“We’re growing organically, … and our goal is to double our user base again by next year,” Nothegger ended.

To learn more about Sharewise, click here.