Pluto.markets, a Y-Combinator backed brokerage startup founded by a former Goldman Sachs Trader, announced the closure of a €2.4 million funding round to disrupt the brokerage market in the Nordics and beyond.
The funding round is led by Magnetic, a Berlin-based technology investor. The round saw participation from no less than 6 local unicorn founders (Pleo, Synthesia, Zendesk, Sitecore), Y-Combinator, Nordic Makers and other prominent angels.
”We expect 2024 to be a breakthrough year in which we will launch across the Nordic region that remains dominated by incumbents with 50%+ profit margins. The financial markets are currently undergoing a true revolution and this round positions us to become the leading challenger in the Nordics and beyond,” said CEO & co-founder, Joakim Bruchmann.
The company describes its mission as making investing stupid-simple, drawing on inspiration from companies such as Robinhood and Trade Republic but with a focus on the 100 million Europeans living in countries that have their own local currencies, such as the Nordics, where little innovation has happened since the 90’s due to infrastructure bottlenecks.
With a lean setup, the company has just secured an EU Investment Firm and Custody License, built proprietary core banking infrastructure for the EU and tested their social trading-app with 5.000+ excited demo-users.
“We stand on an incredible foundation and have already hit regulatory milestones and built technology that other companies raised $40m+ to accomplish, which enables us to unlock new revenue streams and innovate quickly. We were capital efficient before it got cool,” commented CTO & co-founder, Oscar Vingtoft.
With neo-brokerage penetration in the EU lagging other regions significantly, the coming years will see the future winners establish themselves. This especially holds true for non-Euro countries.
“We are really excited to lead Pluto.markets’ €2.4 million funding round alongside a group of extraordinary investors. We are big believers in financial participation as a driver for lasting and systemic change, which aligns well with Joakim’s and Oscar’s approach, starting with modern proprietary core banking infrastructure for underserved regions. The gap in the market is obvious and the Pluto team has proven that they have what it takes to win,” added David Rosskamp, Managing Partner and founder of Magnetic.
