wikifolio Archives - inventures.eu

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Wikifolio secures a €6M investment round structured by SpeedInvest

alexandrac Posted On June 25, 2014

Last month, we wrote about wikifolio teaming up with Finanzen100 in a strategic partnership (read the story here). Wikifolio, however, is determined to keep us on our toes with more newsworthy developments, by raising a 6-million-euro investment round led by SpeedInvest.

Wikifolio is an Vienna-based startup whose certificates are said to be the first social media investment products available. Equipped with their own ISIN, the wikifolio certificates can be traded on the Stuttgart stock exchange and over the counter at Lang & Schwarz. Following the partnership with Finanzen100 last month, CEO Andreas Kern said to have received positive feedback from users. “The traffic we’re getting from this partnership is increasing steadily. Looks like we have achieved a win-win-win situation: Finanzen100, our users and ourselves are happy with the collaboration,“ he told inventures.eu.

The investment

Apparently, this progress has not gone unnoticed, as wikifolio secured no less than 6 million euros in fresh capital. The deal was structured by SpeedInvest and brought in financing from existing shareholders, such as VHB Ventures, Lang & Schwarz, Michael Grabner Media and Michael Altrichter, as well as new private investors.

“We started talking a good half year ago,“ Kern said. In the end, we decided to go with the partner who offered the best combination of fair terms and an impressive amount of expert know-how of our market.”

Wikifolio disclosed to inventures.eu its current ownership structure, which after this latest capital inflow looks as follows:

The money will be used to help develop wikifolio.com into a global brand. The startup plans to focus on growing the team further and investing energy into product development: new features for investors and traders, mobile apps and new partners.

Looking back at a successful year

In the last month alone, wikifolio has brought to market two new offers in cooperation with long-time partner S Broker: “wikifolio-Zertifikate,” which are priced at 0,99 euro as well as “Sparplan wikifolios”. These two products represent the first step in opening wikifolio towards a broader target group and becoming relevant in the less experienced investor segment.

In our previous coverage, we’ve also related that wikifolio reached profitability earlier this year, has executed the one millionth trade and has successfully expanded operations (read the full story here).

“We look back upon a great and successful year since we started – nearly everything that we’ve initiated has worked out well. However, we are aware of the fact that we need to prepare for possible backstrokes that may come in the future as well, “ Kern added.

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Wikifolio and Finanzen100 become a team

alexandrac Posted On May 13, 2014

Earlier this month, Austrian startup Wikifolio.com announced that it has secured a partnership with German portal Finanzen100, the leader in mobile financial information.

Wikifolio.com was developed by a team led by Andreas Kern in Vienna, and started operations in August 2012 in Germany. A couple of months ago, we reported on the expansion of their operations to Austria (read about it here). Wikifolio certificates are said to be the first social media investment products available, equipped with their own ISIN, meaning they can be traded on the Stuttgart stock exchange and over the counter at Lang & Schwarz. However, this is only the start.

Sales through Finanzen100

With this new partnership, wikifolio certificates will be traded through the Finanzen100 Android smartphone app, with an iOS app equipped with wikifolio coming soon. In essense, Finanzen100 users are not only able to access wikifolio.com information, but also to directly invest in wikifolio certificates. In order to include a social component, wikifolio.com allows amateurs and professionals to monitor the trading strategies of traders, these strategies being called wikifolios, along with all the comments made by traders on these transactions.

In order to bring the social trading component of wikifolio.com to the trader, the Finanzen100 app integrates all comments, trades and data of wikifolio index certificates. CEO Andreas Kern told inventures.eu that “Finanzen100 … is a perfect fit as we have joint activities with many more leading companies including OnVista, Börse Stuttgart, HSBC, Wallstreet Online etc.“

Also, through this partnership, the young startup hopes to increase usability for its users, whocan watch wikifolio trades, comments and more in real time through the Finanzen100 application.
“In addition, our social trading content is integrated to other financial information, e.g. during watching a stock chart on the app you can find out which top traders have made recent trades in this stock. More than 100.000 users have downloaded the new version in the first hours,” Kern added.

Recent accomplishments and future plans

To date, more than 5.370 wikifolios have been published on the website and yesterday, trade number one million was executed. As for revenues, “we have been profitablein the first quarter of 2014, but will increase our investments in product development and marketing including new markets in Europe. So we do not plan a profit for 2014 in total,” Kern said.

On the recent accomplishments list, the startup notes the emergence of a new segment exclusively for professional advisors. “Established advisors and asset managers, like HPM or Bayrische Vermögen, started their own wikifolios,” Kern said. “Retail investors can benefit from such strategies starting with 100 euros, for example. Secondly, structured products like knock-out products from HSBC and Lang & Schwarz can be traded within wikifolios – with about 50.000 tradable underlyings, wikifolios are a great tool also for bear markets or phases of high volatility.”

Currently, Wikifolio.com has a team of 16 people and is growing in order to achieve more ambitious goals in the near future. “We are quite busy at the moment: new order types for publishing traders, wikifolios which include other wikifolios, a new watchlist and alerting service, new major partners, more underlyings in our investment universe, new markets in Europe,” Kern said.

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Tech ventures top UPside award

sebastianh Posted On May 7, 2014

About a month ago, Austrian finance and stock market blogger Christian Drastil let the community decide on a selection of most promising Austrian startups for an idea that he called the UPside award via his blog and the Facebook page Austrian Startups Pinwall: The crowd decided on the ten most appealing and simply memorable Austrian startups, which were then ranked by financial market experts from Deloitte, business consultants from Rosinger Group, bankers, and private equity managers as well as a member of the Federation of Austrian Industry in terms of their estimated future potential. Patron of the whole process and controller during the selection was the former OMV CEO Richard Schenz.

The questions on the voting, in which each member of the jury could spend one to five points on a startup, were rather straightforward: “Which idea is unique? Which venture is fit for other markets? Which one has the most upside?” wrote blogger and Börse Social founder Drastil on his website. Nominated by the community were blossom.io, iq-foxx, Linemetrics, MySugr, Runtastic, Whatchado, wikifolio, willhaben.at, zoomsquare and kochabo – with the last one having joined later because Viennese startup Shpock did not want to be voted on.

A clear winner and a photo finish between second and third

In the end, Austrian venture Runtastic scored 37 points from the panel of fund and private equity managers, consultants and analysts while the second place was ferociously fought for: Linemetrics managed to get 28 points, whereas the shopping portal willhaben.at finished at the third place with 27 points. Only the first three positions were disclosed, though.

“The next Red Bull, if the firm proves that it can earn money on a continuing basis,” was one of the jury comments for sports app Runtastic, while production-optimising venture Linemetrics was commented on positively by a jury member that this is “a market segment that isn’t covered by the big firms”.

The idea behind it and the future

Blogger Christian Drastil’s intention behind organising the UPside award, besides curiosity, was more media awareness for the upcoming ventures of the Austrian startup scene and connecting this issue also to the capital market by inviting finance experts, in particular, as jury members: “Who knows, maybe [some of the ventures] will be in need of funds one day in order to get to the big breakthrough when the three F’s – Family, Friends and Fools – are exhausted; then, they can always draw from the capital market,” Drastilexplained one of the intentions behind the UPside award on his blog at the beginningof April.

Rosinger Group CEO Gregor Rosinger, for example, turned the attention towards another direction: “In times of economic change, the economy and especially the labour market are in need of a dynamic founders scene. It is imperative to encourage and challenge them and eventually capitalise on them via investors and the capital market,” he is quoted about the award.

When it comes to the future of the UPside award, Drastil points to CEE: “Since there are big research teams of banks for the CEE region, we will also be running an UPside award with a CEE focus in the fall,” Drastil told inventures.eu and added that the three winners Runtastic, Linemetrics and willhaben.at will be offered a place in the jury then as well.

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No more corporate monologue

alexandrac Posted On May 29, 2013

On 27 May, about 200 young marketing enthusiasts came together in Vienna for the Marketing Natives event that revolved around the trend of “connectivity” and its implications on companies and marketers. The conclusion? With a smartphone in their pocket, consumers are more powerful than ever.

The company-consumer relationship

“Corporate communication tends towards marketing and vice versa,” said Helmut Spudich, spokesperson for T-mobile, as he drew the audience’s attention to the increased dialogue with customers. Many companies have embraced the potential that social media offers in interacting with the target market. A witty tweet at the right moment can generate thousands of retweets and likes.

With great connectivity, however, comes great accountability. While social media marketing harbours new opportunities for businesses that know how to value this dialogue, networks like Facebook and Twitter give the consumer a channel to voice their opinions and publish their unofficial reviews. Thus, when Skeptical Joe is about to make a purchase decision, whom will he trust? A one-sided advertising campaign or his Facebook friends? The implication is that businesses have no choice but to shift their priorities towards making the customers happy, as they are the ones spreading their message.

Nevertheless, the influence of consumers is not constrained to reviews. wikifolio founder Andreas Kern created a social trading platform where traders can publish their portfolios, thus providing an alternative to bank advisory services. The young entrepreneur demonstrated that, in this way, consumers could even bypass companies altogether. “Through platforms such as wikifolio the consumer is independent of businesses and thus more powerful,” said Kern.

In this era of connectivity, what must a business do to maintain a good relationship with its customers? Considering the increasing influence of the opinion of the common consumer, it seems almost necessary for businesses to treat their customer and overall media relations with the same degree of importance. Because at the end of the day, social media are only part of a (much) bigger communication strategy.

The company-media-consumer relationship

About a month ago, inventures.eu’s Ondrej Gandel, Alena Schmuck and Mina Nacheva underlined some of the basic do’s and don’t’s that startups should be aware of when interacting with the media at a workshop at HUB Vienna, the main learnings of which can be found in this article. While it is undeniable that journalists enjoy greater credibility than corporates and their words have the power to influence others, the opinion of the common consumer is gaining increasing traction and there is value to be gained from comparing the two.

As we explained in “How to own your media relations and your story”, the first step in making a connection with the media is understanding the needs and priorities of journalists. Although their needs are different, the same is true for dealing with consumers. Focusing on what they want is paramount. Just like when dealing with the media, transparency is key and information about the business must be easily accessible. What is more, the audience likes an interesting story, people they can relate to, enthusiasm and even a bit of intrigue – in a right balance.

In an environment where every voice is heard, transparency is no longer just an option for businesses. It becomes a vital trait imposed by the many customers who hold companies accountable for their actions and statements. Whether building a dialogue with consumers and/or a relationship with the media asthe channel to the general public, one type of corporate communication is becoming increasingly valued: an honest and consistent message.

More on the topic:

How to own your media relations and your story