Zach Hascoe's Say Technologies Ensures Every Investor Is Heard In Corporate Arenas: 'Their Voice Matters'

Zach Hascoe is a co-founder and Chief Commercial Officer of Say Technologies – a technology platform for shareholder voting and communications.

Prior to Say, Hascoe spent seven years at WisdomTree – one of the largest independent Exchange Traded Product (ETP) and Exchange Traded Fund (ETF) providers, where he was a director of Capital Markets.

Alongside fellow financial experts, Hascoe will participate at Benzinga's Fintech Deal Day event in NYC on Nov. 13. He will discuss the topic of "Future-Proofing Trading: Embracing Innovation and Trends for Success."

The Story Behind Say

Hascoe co-founded Say Technologies by following the desire to eliminate the barriers that keep people from participating in financial system. By reimagining investor communications, Say made it easier for millions of investors to execute their shareholder right – to have a voice in the companies they invest in.

"We knew that there was a better way, we knew that people would care about these rights and we're really excited to power a much deeper experience for investors," Hascoe said in an interview with ARK Invest, elaborating that their platform created a two-way channel of communication between ordinary investors and companies.

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The way Say works is rather straightforward. Investors come to the platform, verify their share ownership and get communication access. The platform then creates value by allowing even the smallest investors to get answers based on merits and not shareholder size.

"The biggest misconception before we started Say was that one doesn’t have enough shares to matter. That was a huge focus of our product, that if you have a really good idea that it is going to rise to the top,” he said, referring to Say’s internal system that gives preference to most supported questions.

Still, Say’s value extends to the other side as well. Not only do public companies get a better way to address their shareholders at scale – they also get deeper insights into analytics. It is easier to learn who these shareholders are, what they engage with, and what they care about.

“People will realize their voice matters. There is no reason technology shouldn’t enable that with everything we have going on,” Hascoe noted.

Needless to say, Wall Street quickly recognized this value. Say received plenty of VC interest, including capital from Point72 Ventures. Eventually, in 2021, it became Robinhood’s first acquisition since its IPO.

With Robinhood’s large retail client base and Say’s technology, it was a logical move for both companies.

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