One of the spaces badly impacted by COVID-19 was the currency market. However, despite the lockdown, several innovations have helped the industry stay afloat and thrive amidst a global downturn. From cloud computing to new software to aid trading, the currency market has leveraged the internet to revolutionize trading. Another frontier in the currency market came by way of the cryptocurrency revolution.
According to a NASDAQ trend outlook, in the last two years, retail trading has been significantly boosted by the pandemic, combined with the spread of the zero-commission brokerage model. The latter had been turning into an industry norm for app-based trading platforms since December 2019.
Merging community and the principles of trading, TakeProfit, a community-driven trading platform, today announced it raised $3 million as part of a funding seed round. Alex Shulzhenko, TakeProfit founder and CEO, told VentureBeat this funding will aid TakeProfit in its mission to create an intuitive tool for self-directed traders and investors, combining a trading terminal with user-generated content.
A new breed of traders
Research by the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) Investor’s Education Foundation at the University of Chicago showed many new retail investors of the pandemic era are different from average traders of the previous years. They are younger, more racially diverse and have smaller incomes. Innovation has made access to markets easier for a wider, more variegated audience.
An estimate by Credit Suisse revealed amateur traders constitute a third of all U.S. stock market trading activities. With individuals of different backgrounds flocking into the market, Shulzhenko noted that the need for an intuitive, powerful and scalable trading platform arises because when searching for information, new investors have to deal with sell-side analytics, misleading online advertising and high-pressure sales tactics.
There is another peculiarity of the generation of traders raised during the pandemic: although lacking in the education aspect, they make up for it in passion. As Shulzhenko puts it, “TakeProfit is a collaborative platform that enables its users to share their opinions, trading experiences and analytical findings. TakeProfit plans to offer creators a few opportunities for monetization, including private feed and donations.”
With this product, experienced investors and swing traders will obtain better functionality and customization according to their needs, allowing the newbies to get a headstart in their trading experiences.
New technology for traders of all levels
While explaining the technology behind TakeProfit, Shulzhenko said, “We are building something absolutely new from the ground, totally reinventing [the] trading experience.” He added that UI and “fast technologies, combined with the creator-economy platform, free from institutions and sell-side research, will encourage insight of the crowd, providing different forms of monetization for creators. There will be no ads or other forms of promotion for brokers.”
The mix of comprehensible data visualization and interactivity powered by an advanced stack of WebGL, C++ and Wasm will make TakeProfit easy to operate, according to Shulzhenko. To make it even better, the platform’s team is working out its own programming language to develop trading indicators and strategies.
“There will be a marketplace for trading indicators and strategies. We are focusing on alternative data within the traditional datasets,” he said.
“Our team is already building connections with the trading community, and we have a few thousand traders waitlisted for the private beta-testing. We are planning to send out invites by the end of the year,” he added.
TakeProfit’s funding plans
This funding round was led by Admitad founder Alexander Bachmann, alongside Lime Financial and other angel investors. With a mission to reinvent the trading experience, TakeProfit founder Shulzhenko said the company will invest the additional capital in developing its team and building a platform that enables traders to make consistent profits.
The current headcount at TakeProfit is 25, but the company wants to grow that number following this funding. TakeProfit is oriented to the audience in the United States, Europe and Asia, with the U.S. being its primary focus.
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