From the very beginning, we have shifted our focus to building bridges, and in this context discovered our passion for international fintechs. It started in autumn 2019 with our “Building Bridges” event as part of the Hamburg Fintech Week, where we invited fintechs from Sweden and Switzerland to Hamburg to introduce themselves to the German banking and fintech community …. and vice versa. Since then, we have had the opportunity to meet and support many international fintechs from Sweden, Estonia and Portugal, among others. Our focus is on fintechs that are already established in their respective home markets and are aiming for international expansion to continue their growth. The path to Germany is therefore only logical due to the size and importance of the market. Following our “Building Bridges” maxim, we invite international fintechs that want to enter Germany or are already active here to briefly introduce themselves in our blog and share their view of Germany and the local market. We will start with Stockrepublic, a company from Sweden, which we already welcomed to our “Building Bridges” event in 2019.
who we are
by StockRepublic/Fabian Grapengiesser
We are a social trading platform that is on a mission to empower banks to attract and retain the next generation of investors. With our platform, banks and brokers can finally bring trading into the 21st century, and create authentic communities that are centered around their customers. Using our white label applications (frontend) and API (backend), financial institutions can now easily create social trading functionalities that have a proven track record of generating increased revenues and new customers. With StockRepublic, traders get access to previously unavailable data, insights, and industry tips, all with the goal of creating a pathway for people to make educated and engaged investment decisions.
I (Fabian Grapengiesser) am the CEO and co-founder of StockRepublic, and have previously founded (and later sold) the popular social trading network, Shareville. With StockRepublic, I have been fortunate enough to be able to put together a world-class team of open banking and FinTech industry veterans, and we are now working hard to empower people with a cutting-edge social trading experience for retail investors.
What we offer
- Off-the-shelf and white label applications (iOS, Android, and Desktop) that serve as investment communities for banks and brokers.
- A backend product called Social Trading API, which is an API library that offers all of the functions from our white label applications, as modules, ready to be connected to any existing or upcoming bank or broker application.
Our business model is centered around providing banks and brokers with a social trading platform that helps boost engagement for their customers that are holding stocks, funds, crypto, or other similar investments. This concept is considered to be low-risk for the financial institutions, as we only charge for the amount of users, in addition to an initial, cost-efficient setup cost.
While we have come a long way in a short time, we are especially proud of a number of recent achievements. From seeing Hi!stocks live, to attracting investments from Swedish venture capital fund Uequity and Commerzbank, the German banking giant. In total, we have recently raised 2 million EUR, and we are now ready to put the pedal to the metal and further accelerate our growth, with one primary focus area being Germany.
The German market is interesting to us because we have witnessed substantial growth of the retail investor movement here, and an increased demand for stock ownership in general. The average German investor have similar needs and desires to people in the Nordics, where we first got our start, but they lack the type of product that we offer. That is why we are delighted to partner with Commerzbank/comdirect and expand both our reach and our offerings.
contact details
Gravning GmbH
Hegestieg 1
20249 Hamburg
office@gravning.de
