Singaporean alternative asset manager Indies Capital Partners has announced the first close of its second fund, Indies Strategic Technology Fund II (ISTF II).

Targeted at US$80 million, ISTF II has raised commitments totalling more than 70 per cent of the target fund size.

The new fund aims to invest in top tech companies in Southeast Asia with an established growth trajectory and valuation of US$500 million and above.

Just as its first fund portfolio featured three decacorns, five unicorns, and five centaurs, ISTF II will continue the momentum by targeting mid-to-late-stage technology companies across all verticals in the region.

“Southeast Asia is one of the world’s fastest-growing internet markets, underpinned by favourable demographics and strong economic fundamentals. Increasing digitisation, rising consumption, and rapid development of the region’s tech ecosystem represent an exciting investment opportunity. With the exit market for the ecosystem’s first wave of unicorns actively taking shape, this is an optimal time for entry,” said Pandu Sjahrir, Managing Partner of Indies.

Also Read: Southeast Asia to become the fastest growing mobile wallet region in the world: report

“Despite the leaps in the development of the ecosystem in the past few years, secondary share sales in Southeast Asia remain hugely disorganised. Given our investment lineage in special situations and growth equity, we identified a latent opportunity and started deploying into this strategy five years ago to address the unmet needs for intermediate liquidity in Southeast Asia. The region has seen unprecedented growth in early-to-mid stage funding in the last few years, and we think this will pave the way for the formation of a robust supply of investable companies for ISTF II,” added Harold Ong, Partner of Indies.

Southeast Asia has long been a breeding ground of opportunities for many tech companies.

In particular, new startups catering to digital adoption, including education, health, and financial technology have gone on to become success stories.

In total, the region’s tech upstarts have gone on to raise a total of US$8.2 billion, according to a report by Bloomberg.

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Singapore- and Malaysia-based Artificial Intelligence-powered foodtech startup, Easy Eat AI announced today it has secured US$5 million in a fresh round of financing.

Investors include Aroa Ventures (the family office of Oyo founder Ritesh Agarwal, Reddy Futures Family Office, Prophetic Ventures, Maninder Gulati (Global chief strategy officer of Oyo), Cem Garih (Managing Partner at Alarko Ventures), Fethi Sabancı Kamışlı (founder and Managing Partner of Esas Ventures, and a few Silicon Valley-based VCs and angels.

The company will utilise the capital for team expansion, founder and CEO Mohd Wassem told e27. Over the past three months, the team has grown from 10 to 40 people.

Also Read: (Exclusive) AI foodtech startup Easy Eat rakes in funding from ex-Uber CPO, Silicon Valley veterans to ramp up Malaysia ops

The latest deal is sealed just over a month after Easy Eat secured an undisclosed amount of funding from a clutch of investors such as Silicon Valley veteran and former Uber chief product officer Manik Gupta. Previously, East Eat bagged pre-Series A round from investors such as Bala Chandra, Managing Partner of Vernalis Capital, and his family office, besides five other unnamed angels.

Easy Eat was founded in early 2020 by friends Mohd Wassem, Rhythm Gupta, Abdul Khalid and Akshay Chauhan.

The foodtech startup digitises all customer-facing interactions in restaurants — from browsing menu, ordering and tracking to payments. It also personalises and rewards users’ dining experience. At the heart of its technology is an operating system with integrated QR-based table ordering, loyalty programmes, payment solutions, social media integration, inventory and integrated delivery services.

Once the restaurant adopts Easy Eat AI’s technology, the entire operations move online. Just like any other technology company, restaurants can capture each and every data point in the value chain which leads to a better understanding of customer choices, higher revenue and reduced cost.

Easy Eat claims it has been able to increase the revenue of restaurants by 30 per cent and reduce the operational cost by 15 per cent.

In Malaysia, Easy Eat AI is already serving hundreds of merchants, including brands like Richiamo Coffee, Mr. Fish Fishhead Noodles, WTF Group, and Hailam Toast.

“The current pandemic scenario has accelerated the digital transformation of the restaurant industry, with more and more restaurants and customers increasingly wanting contactless services. Easy Eat AI partner restaurants have been able to withstand the impact of COVID-19 better than other restaurants. Even during the worst of the lockdown period, our merchants were generating 50 per cent of the usual revenue,” said Wassem said.

“The most affected restaurants are those with no clear digital strategy that will continue to struggle even post- COVID-19 with limited revenue-generating opportunities, escalating cost of operations and they would continue to rely on third-party platforms for deliveries paying 30-35 per cent commission,” said Wassem.

“The team is customer-obsessed and understands the pain problems of the industry. Their innovative software platform will be disruptive to the entire F&B ecosystem and how customers engage through the F&B lifecycle in the online-to-offline world,” said Keshav Reddy, Managing Partner, Reddy Futures Family Office.

Also Read: AI startup Easy Eat aims to transform restaurants into tech firms and make dining more interactive

Southeast Asia’s F&B industry is estimated to be around US$100 billion in size, where the majority prefer eating out. In some countries, more than 90 per cent of people consume at least one meal outside a day. Plus, the region has a high female working population. All this bodes well for Easy Eat.

Wassem has previously built and exited Bobble Keyboard, for which he raised multiple rounds of funding from SAIF Partners, Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal (co-founders of Flipkart), Deep Kalra (founder of MakeMyTrip), Amit Ranjan (co-founder of Slideshare) and Prashant Malik (co-creator of Cassandra).

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Image Credit: Easy Eat AI

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Malaysian VC firm Vynn Capital invests in Hong Kong-based trade finance Velotrade

Plans with the capital: With the new financing and partnership with Vynn Capital, Velotrade plans to scale its technological infrastructure and expand into new geographies in Southeast Asia.

What is Velotrade: It operates a digital platform that matches corporates in need of working capital with institutional investors willing to advance funds. Launched in 2017, it has since granted short-term financing of outstanding invoices to thousands of corporates, including Fortune 500 companies and SMEs.

Through the partnership with Vynn Capital, Velotrade will further scale its operations and expand into Malaysia and other markets of Southeast Asia. In addition to financing, Vynn Capital will actively contribute company-building expertise and provide access to an extensive network of resources in Southeast Asia to Velotrade.

Singapore launches global challenge to encourage AI adoption in fintech

The story: The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) has launched the Global Veritas Challenge to promote the adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) solutions in the financial sector.

Also Read: Easy Eat AI attracts US$5M from Ritesh Agarwal’s family office, others

More about the challenge: It aims to accelerate the development of AI and data analytics solutions that adhere to the Veritas framework’s fairness, ethics, accountability, and transparency (FEAT) principles. The FEAT principles were developed in 2018 by MAS and the financial industry to strengthen internal governance around the use of AI and data management and use.

The challenge, supported by a leading global professional services company, invites fintech companies, solution providers, and financial institutions from around the world to submit solutions for problem statements aimed at validating the fairness of AI solutions. Banks identified these statements in product marketing, risk, compliance, and fraud monitoring, loan origination and know-your-customer, and credit scoring and profiling.

Babydash raises US$300K bridge via ECF, positioned for regional expansion

The story: Malaysia’s digital baby store Babydash has raised US$300,000 (RM1.27 million) via equity crowdfunding (ECF) platform pitchIN. This raise also saw the participation of the Malaysian Government via the Malaysia Co-Investment Fund (MYCIF) further strengthening government support for the digitalisation of the economy.

Plans: To drive up revenue per transaction while expanding its footprint in ASEAN leading towards the goal of doubling the size of the company in the next 12-18 months.

About Babydash: Founded 10 years ago, Babydash has evolved into a one-stop online shopping destination that provides the largest range of genuine, curated, high-quality mum and baby products at the best prices. With customers increasingly relying on e-commerce solutions during this pandemic, Babydash has provided parents with an invaluable helping hand to meet their needs.

Over the last few months, Babydash has been investing in new technology which enhances customer experience as well as its data analytics capabilities, delivering on its primary goal of serving customers better. Investment proceeds from this campaign will drive Babydash into the next phase, boosting their lead and market presence in Malaysia and growing the Singapore market as they expand their roots across the region.

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Image Credit: Babydash

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Nas Academy, a Singapore-based education platform that empowers creators to build their own academy, has raised US$11 million in a Series A funding round led by Lightspeed Venture Partners.

Other investors include TechAviv Founder Partners, 500 Startups, Graph Ventures, FreshFund, Metapurse, Balaji Srinivasan, Emilie Choi (President and COO of Coinbase), Ritesh Agrawal (founder and CEO of OYO), Markian (a creator with over 10 million followers), and the founders of Jellysmack.

With the fresh funds, the company plans to expand its network of creator partners and strategic partners to make the platform’s content accessible to every person in the world.

Nuseir Yassin, a Harvard-educated software engineer-turned-creator with over 40 million followers across all social media platforms, founded Nas Academy in 2020 because he himself was part of the explosion of the creator economy and witnessed firsthand its full potential to reach everyday fans.

Yet he recognised a core problem for creators; despite reaching millions of followers and billions of views, creators still struggled to make a sustainable living from social media platforms.

There was also an untapped market to help creators spread the wealth of their skills to other budding creators.

Yassin wanted to create a different type of education platform — one with creators in mind that removes the barriers for creators to become educators

Also Read: Edutech will be a hot commodity going forward: GREDU co-founder Rizky Anies

Unlike other edutech platforms, Nas Academy supports creators with curriculum development, marketing, and community management.

In just over a year, Nas Academy claims to have helped creators generate millions of revenue and teach students from 110 countries.

“Nas Academy was born out of a problem I faced. If a creator wants to teach, they need to use multiple services, figure out marketing, and spend a lot of time and effort to build a learning experience. With our support and platform, we make it super easy and straightforward to turn a YouTuber into a professor,” said Yassin.

“COVID-19 has also changed education as we know it. Nas Academy will decentralise online education. Just like social media platforms enabled a kid from a village to get more views than CNN, Nas Academy wants to enable one creator to become bigger than Harvard,” he added.

Akshay Bhushan, Partner at Lightspeed, said: “New media is increasingly dominated by creators and Nuseir & team, having been successful creators themselves, are uniquely positioned to enable creators to become educators to teach and monetise their respective crafts.”

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Digital SMEs have been categorized as underbanked or unbanked segments for quite some time, even though they have crucial contributions to the economy; in Indonesia alone, SMEs are contributing 60 per cent of the country’s GDP while absorbing 97 per cent of the local workforce.

“As one of the first fintech companies that focus on helping them, we have experienced their spirit and creativity in building a sustainable business that resulted in remarkable impact for the country,” said Benedicto Haryono, CEO and Co-Founder of KoinWorks, an online peer-to-peer financing platform for small and medium-sized businesses in Indonesia.

But not everything is rosy, as based on the Digital SME Confidence Index research that was done by KoinWorks last year, the majority of Indonesian SMEs are facing challenges due to the COVID-19 pandemic, with an average confidence index of 2.37 out 5.

However, the same research also shows that SMEs that have more than one sales channel — after expanding to online marketplace, social media, or creating a website – tend to have less of an income drop.

The trading industry, for example, can even reach a high confidence index of 4.7 from 5.00, likely because of the online transaction boost that happened after the government applied the large-scale social restriction. This shows that digital support for SMEs has a positive impact amid the pandemic.

Supporting SME growth even through the pandemic

Through innovation, KoinWorks has enabled thousands of SMEs to access credit and financing that would normally be inaccessible to them through traditional financial institutions. Since 2016, KoinWorks has become the pioneer in the Digital SME sector by collaborating with prominent tech companies in Indonesia, such as Tokopedia, Shopee, Lazada, Moka, Pawoon, Mekari, and BukuKas. Because of those partnerships, the loan approval process for SME owners can be more efficient.

“In the age of technology, it’s easier for us to diversify our investment according to our risk profile and financial purpose. For example people can choose peer to peer loans and government bonds for their short term investment and gold for long investment. In KoinWorks, you can do it without having to switch apps,” said Dani Rachmat Kurniawan, an Investor of KoinWorks and Certified Financial Planner.

Also read: India’s first accelerator and VC fund gears up for its maiden demo day series

On average, KoinWorks’s lender can get 18.37 per cent in annual yield. With a low Non-Performing Loan rate of 1.2 per cent, KoinWorks has strengthened its business and has achieved profitability earlier this year. KoinWorks as a Super Financial App has a multiverse of products generating Take Rate up to 6% of their balance, through platform fees and partner fees.

With the COVID-19 outbreak that has disturbed economic stability in Indonesia, KoinWorks worked on supporting SMEs that could not quickly adapt to the situation by providing a loan restructure program for several borrowers, prolonging their payment to 24 months and reducing the monthly repayment.

In 2020, around 12 per cent of KoinWorks’ borrowers have restructured their loans. However, it has decreased to only 4 per cent this year. In comparison, it is lower than several banks that restructured more than 20 per cent of their loan portfolio.

Paving the way for a strong P2P finance ecosystem

The restructuring process not only helps the borrowers in managing their cash flow, but also lenders in getting their full repayment.

Kurniawan said that he understood the risk before deciding to invest in KoinWorks, which is why he kept investing in the platform despite some restructure that happened to several of his loan portfolios.

“I believe KoinWorks will do their best to get the payment sooner or later because it’s a fintech company that has a license from OJK (Indonesia’s Financial Service Authority). It also offered convenience for me to diversify my portfolio by allowing lenders to invest as low as IDR 100.000. It’s a good feature that many P2P lending companies don’t have,” he said.

On the other hand, loan restructuring has been proven to help all SMEs to survive in these hard times, indirectly giving a positive contribution for the recovery of the national economy. Currently, 82% of SMEs that have loan restructuring facilities have been able to stabilize their income and do full repayment.

Also read: STPI’s Vision Programme: empowering Taiwan-based startups to tap into Southeast Asia and beyond

Dedy, the owner of a Jogja-based bed sheet brand called Jaxine, is one of the SMEs that had his loan restructured in KoinWorks. He started availing of KoinWorks credit facilities in 2016, and topped up again in 2018. When the pandemic happened, he called it a horrific time in running a business.

The loan restructuring on KoinWorks helped reduce his monthly repayment from IDR 50 million (around US$3,400) to only IDR 30 million (around US$2,000) per month.

“Honestly, I can’t be here if I did not get help at that time,” he said. Today, Dedy’s business continues to grow and helps maintain employment for his 40 employees.

Arias Sudiarta, owner of a used car dealer called ARS Auto Car, also got breathing room through the loan restructuring facility from KoinWorks that helped him manage his business cash flow and prevent staff layoff.

He said that the COVID-19 pandemic has caused a steep decline in his monthly sales from IDR 3.5 billion to around IDR 1 billion. “However, it currently has increased 250 per cent to IDR 2.5 billion per month,” he said.

KoinWorks will release the Digital SME Confidence Index Report for H1 2021 in August.

You can read the Digital SME Confidence Index Report Q4 2020 on this link.

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This article is produced by the e27 team, sponsored by Koinworks.

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Syfe, a Singapore-headquartered digital wealth management company, today announced that it has closed its Series B funding round of SGD40 million (US$30 million) led by Valar Ventures, the US-based VC firm co-founded by Peter Thiel.

Existing investors Presight Capital (US) and Unbound also participated.

This capital injection comes just nine months after Syfe’s US$18.6 million Series A round led by Valar Ventures in September 2020.

With the latest round, the wealthtech startup’s total capital raised since its launch in 2019 has reached US$52.6 million.

Also Read: Syfe closes US$18.6M Series A to take its digital wealth management biz into new markets

The fresh capital will be used by Syfe to expand into new markets in Asia, invest in top talent, and develop new products and services.

Syfe has also announced it is making all of its employees become shareholders of the company.

Launched in July 2019, Syfe is a Monetary Authority of Singapore- (MAS) licensed digital wealth manager that aims to help people make smarter financial decisions. It enables users to create personalised and professionally managed portfolios with simple steps. Clients get access to Syfe’s wealth advisors and an intuitive investing experience that it claims is low cost and hassle-free.

The platform has no minimum investment amounts and maintains a low annual fee, starting at 0.35 per cent of the total amount invested.

As per a press release, Syfe’s assets under management have quadrupled since the start of the year.

Headcount in Singapore has doubled since the start of the year to 50, taking Syfe’s total global headcount to over 100.

Dhruv Arora, Founder and CEO, Syfe, said: “Managing wealth has become a necessity in this low-interest-rate environment, and we are seeing a significant increase in demand from customers looking for quality solutions.”

Andrew McCormack, Founding Partner, Valar Ventures, said: “Syfe was our first investment in Asia. The opportunity for the company to meet the saving and investment needs of a burgeoning mass-affluent consumer population in Asia remains significant, and we are confident that Syfe will continue to expand at pace. We are looking forward to partnering with this talented, dynamic team in its next phase of growth.”

Also Read: StashAway raises US$25M Series D to ‘fill the gap in digital wealth management space’

The wealthtech sector in Singapore, the second wealthiest economy in Asia, has seen accelerated growth over the past two to three years. StashAway is probably the leader in this segment. StashAway, co-founded by former Zalora CEO Michele Ferrario, raisedUS$25 million in Series D funding round led by Sequoia Capital India in April this year.

Earlier this month, Endowus.com, another fast-growing startup, announced a US$22.3M Series A from strategic investors, including UBS, Samsung Ventures, and Singtel Innov8.

On Tuesday, Bambu, a Singapore-based startup providing digital wealth technology for B2B businesses across the globe, announced the acquisition of Tradesocio, a developer of wealth management software for advisors, based in the island nation.

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Image Credit: Syfe

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edamama, a new e-commerce platform designed for mothers in the Philippines, has announced that it has raised US$5 million in its latest pre-Series A round from investors.

Investors include Gentree Fund, Robinsons Retail Holdings, and Kickstart Ventures, who are the affiliates of SM Investments Corporation, JG Summit, and Ayala Corporation, respectively.

The round also saw participation from Foxmont Capital Partners, an early-stage VC firm based in the Philippines, besides unnamed Filipino and global angel investors.

The startup plans to use a part of the funds to expand its warehouse capabilities and improve its delivery services for customers to receive their goods more quickly.

Also Read: E-commerce enabler Great Deals closes US$30M Series B to build automated fulfilment centre in Philippines

Apart from this, it is also working on omnichannel expansion and providing new mediums of direct-to-consumer communication, such as selling through a live stream. “Our goal is to continue being vertically focused, so we could gain and build the trust of more mothers in the country,” said edamama co-founder Bela Gupta D’Souza.

edamama was established amidst the pandemic by the husband-wife duo of Nishant and Bela Gupta D’Souza, who saw the pain points of mothers as consumers when purchasing online. They noticed mothers spend many hours in search of the best products for their children only to end up with mediocre items with inferior quality from untrusted sources.

The Philippine startup aims to address the issue of quality, as well as the other challenges common among today’s e-commerce platforms — such as channel fragmentation, non-established brand trust, the lack of a discovery-led buying experience, and poor customer service.

The site is designed for mothers to “get easy online access to quality products and services while ensuring the lowest prices through a system that simplifies purchasing experience”.

Since its launch in May 2020, edamama claims to have served tens of thousands of expectant and new mothers through doorstep delivery of over 22,000 SKUs, plus a wide range of online classes and activities.

It operates several products designed to make shopping more convenient for moms and their families.

Through edamama’s Gift Registry, users can create gift wish lists for special occasions, from baby showers to birthday celebrations, and share these with loved ones. They will then receive their desired items gift wrapped and in time for their special occasion.

Another feature is Subscribe & Save, an online diaper subscription service launched in partnership with Pampers.

It also offers Explore, a one-stop destination for parents to book the best online classes, events, and activities for their children.

Moreover, its platform also delivers authentic parenting content, personalised promos, and a community for parents to make the right decisions. It has also developed “bean” rewards that can be converted to peso credits.

“edamama is leading the future of personalised e-commerce in the Philippines, offering mothers a safe forum to share experiences while integrating discovery-led experiences into their platform. edamama is underpinned by a strong content strategy that allows it to support mothers at every stage of parenting, a strategy that has won them a loyal following of mothers,” said Mark Sng, Vice-President of Gentree Fund.

Minette Navarrete, President of Kickstart Ventures, said: “edamama captures the essence of this ‘village’: an easy, trustworthy, and personalised shopping experience for busy moms; useful, curated, verified content; and safe community interactions that affirm and support parenting.”

“The developing e-commerce landscape that sells everything to everyone is a bit of a wild wild west, but through mindful curation and intense engagement, edamama is earning trust and repeat purchases, capturing a meaningful and growing share of the mommy market,” added Navarrete.

Also Read: Emotional leadership in a post-COVID-19 business world

The Philippine e-commerce market is the fastest growing in Southeast Asia. According to Google’s e-Conomy SEA 2020 report, it grew by 55 per cent at the height of the pandemic as the purchasing behaviour of consumers shifted from face-to-face to digital.

One of the major growth areas of the market is the maternity products segment, which is in turn being driven by the country’s high fertility rate. An HKTDC commissioned study predicts that the segment’s value will surpass the US$1 billion mark in 2022.

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Image Credit: edamama

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Southeast Asia will become the fastest-growing region for mobile wallets globally, with mobile wallets in use expected to triple in the next five years, a research report by London-based fintech firm Boku.

Within the region, Indonesia is one of the fastest-growing mobile payment markets, with mobile wallet users set to more than triple (from 63.6 million to 202 million) by 2025. Ovo dominates the market share in the region with 38 per cent of users.

Malaysia, on the other hand, is lagging behind other Southeast Asian countries, as mobile wallets are slower to enter and gain traction in the market. Malaysia is currently dominated by a triopoly, with GrabPay and Touch ‘N Go (together with about 40 per cent market share), and Boost with roughly 22 per cent market share, the report stated.

Also Read: Is Southeast Asia now more accepting of mobile wallets?

However, Malaysia is set for hyper-growth over the next five years, as mobile wallet users and penetration are set to triple.

In spite of all the developments within the region, Singapore takes the cake with mobile wallet penetration set to reach nearly 95 per cent by 2025 from 30.4 per cent in 2020.

Despite its small population, the mobile payments ecosystem is thriving, with a number of offerings that include the regional super app, Grab, a telco wallet (Singtel Dash), a bank-based wallet (DBS payLah!) as well as the digitisation of the national transit card, EZ-Link.

Another major trend in the mobile wallet market in Asia is the rising expansion of major Chinese wallets outside of their home market. This includes WeChat Pay and bKash.

The report further suggests that while Chinese e-wallets continue expansion it seems unlikely that they will conquer emerging Asian markets as many once thought.

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Carsome Group, Southeast Asian car e-commerce platform has acquired 19.9 per cent of ASX (Australian Stock Exchange)-listed iCar Asia from Catcha Group.

The total transaction is estimated to be worth more than US$200 million.

Both the companies have made a joint proposal to the independent directors of iCar Asia to acquire the balance of 80.1 per cent of iCar from its shareholders.

Catcha Group will also become a shareholder of the Carsome Group in exchange for the sale of its shares in iCar Asia to Carsome.

iCar Asia’s acquisition will offer an enhanced suite of digital products and services to dealers and consumers in all key markets.

The expanded suite of solutions will offer an end-to-end, super-app experience that covers the entire car buying and selling value chain

Also Read: Carsome snags US$30M Series D to strengthen its C2B and B2C offerings

Founded in 2015, Carsome provides end-to-end solutions to consumers and used car dealers — from car inspection to ownership transfer to financing.

The company continues to grow fast claiming to have an annualised revenue of US$800 million with plans to achieve US$1 billion this year.

“We are excited to have Patrick Grove, co-founder of Catcha Group to join us as he brings along two decades of tech entrepreneurship and capital market expertise. This transaction is an important part of our growth strategy to build the entire automotive ecosystem in Southeast Asia and part of how we are transforming the industry through trust, transparency, and technology,” said Eric Cheng, co-founder of Carsome.

“This is the first step toward consolidation to form the largest digital automotive group in terms of revenue, user base, largest live listing, and the best end-to-end fulfilment capability in the region,” he added.

“Bringing iCar Asia’s extensive traffic and dealer network in the region together with Carsome’s leadership position in automotive e-commerce is extremely powerful. We are excited to join Carsome as shareholders and work with Eric and his team to expand our leadership position and look forward to helping the combined business dominate the US$55 billion digital automotive space in Southeast Asia in the years ahead,” added Grove.

A few days ago Carsome also managed to acquire an equity stake in Indonesian offline car and motorcycle auction service company, PT Universal Collection (PT UC).

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Image Credit: Carsome

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It’s been a chaotic year for investment app Robinhood. The platform played a significant role in the famous GameStop short squeeze in January, where huge volumes of retail investors organised themselves on Reddit to dumbfound hedge funds and send the shorted stock to unprecedented highs.

Now, as Robinhood prepares to go public, could we see more short squeezes like GameStop emerging on a regular basis?

Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, Robinhood has rarely strayed from controversy. The app’s imposition of restrictions on the investor accounts in the wake of the GameStop saga drew criticism from investors and onlookers alike.

In May, Warren Buffett, one of Wall Street’s most famous figures, likened Robinhood to a casino. “American corporations have turned out to be a wonderful place for people to put their money and save but they also make terrific gambling chips,” explained Buffett.

“If you cater to those gambling chips when people have money in their pocket for the first time and you tell them they can make 30 or 40 or 50 trades a day and you’re not charging them any commission but you’re selling their order flow or whatever … I hope we don’t have more of it.”

However, despite the controversies, Robinhood’s outpaced all of its competitors since the arrival of the pandemic to become one of the biggest names on the investment scene.

As the chart above shows, Robinhood significantly outpaced traditional brokers since the beginning of 2020. Despite drawing criticism in the wake of the GameStop saga, we can see that downloads spiked at the time.

Also Read: 6-month-old Infina wants to become the “RobinHood” of Vietnam with a US$2M funding

Perhaps most significantly of all is that data shows Robinhood account holders have, on average, a much smaller portfolio than those on more traditional brokerage platforms like Morgan Stanley and Charles Schwab.

This shows that the app is consciously seeking to build appeal with more casual investors who are looking to place some spare money into stocks and shares.

With a long-anticipated IPO set to launch in July, Robinhood may well win more appeal among retail investors. But what will the impact of having a dominant retail market on one app be? And could we see more GameStop short squeezes as a result?

The rise of the memes

The age of the pandemic has led to a widespread influx of new retail investors into the stocks and shares landscape. Maxim Manturov, head of investment research at Freedom Finance Europe, believes that the addition of stimulus packages has paved the way for more entrants into the investing landscape than before.

The pandemic supplied additional reasons for the retail investment market to grow. To support the economy, most countries adopted stimulating policies, which brought both the loan and deposit interest rates to historic lows,” Manturov said.

“As an alternative to low-rate deposits, many started investing their savings into stock markets, which posted significant gains last year despite the lockdown and the productivity slump.”

Many of these new arrivals have coordinated with social media users to generate money on apps like Robinhood by squeezing ailing assets.

Recently, individual investors arranged on social media to drive up the price of AMC, a struggling US movie theatre chain, pushing up shares by 71 per cent. Off the back of this momentum, AMC announced a US$230 million hedge fund investment– only for the said fund to dump the shares a matter of hours later claiming the stock had become ‘overvalued.’ Subsequently the stock surged even higher.

Also Read: Accelerating Asian IPO markets: How long can the initial public offering boom last?

This event, which is largely similar to that of the GameStop saga in January, has shown that social media-driven short squeezes aren’t a one-off and that people with spare money are increasingly willing to social-invest in nostalgic or novel companies in order to inflate the value of their stocks and generate greater personal wealth.

The impact of meme investors on social media is such that it’s now not uncommon to see articles appearing on websites like Yahoo! Finance speculating where the next short squeeze may come from by investigating Reddit sentiment and plucking the most frequently discussed stocks out of the forum.

Robinhood’s timely IPO will keep focus on wall street

The timing of Robinhood’s IPO could be significant for retail investors looking to capitalise on the next short squeeze. The cryptocurrency landscape is still reeling from Bitcoin’s tumbling price across May and June, and the value of meme crypto assets like Doge is still in retreat.

Robinhood’s flotation coupled with an uninspiring crypto landscape could drive even greater levels of interest towards meme stocks and the lure of short squeezes.

As the data above shows, three notable meme stocks in GameStop, AMC, and Blackberry have all trended upwards following the decline of cryptocurrencies, and Reddit forum WallStreetBets has been eager to pump the three stocks even further.

These aren’t the only stocks that have been targeted, with the likes of Nokia also acting as a nostalgia-driven meme stock and even commodities like silver has seen sentiment growing around it.

Although the pandemic is subsiding, it appears that the rise of meme stocks and sentiment-driven investing is only gathering momentum. The recent surges in AMC price shows that enthusiasm among retail investors for generating quick profits is growing beyond that of the GameStop short squeeze of January.

In going public, Robinhood will open itself up to greater levels of adoption among retail investors. As a result, Wall Street may have to adapt to this new era of short squeezes and social investing.

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