StockViva, a Hong Kong-based FinTech firm, announced Monday that it has raised more than $3 million in a round of Series A funding by renowned investors, including Farquhar VC from Singapore, Kharis Capital from Luxembourg, and Hong Huan Group, Angelhub, along with several individual investors from Hong Kong.
Combined with the previous $2 million investment by Alibaba Hong Kong Entrepreneurs Fund from Hong Kong, K3 Ventures founded by MX Kuok from Singapore and individual investors across Asia, to date, StockViva has raised more than $5 million in total.
“We are very pleased to receive strong support from our influential and strategic investors. In 2021, we see significant growth opportunities in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and South East Asia, and our active users in these regions are growing very quickly. With the new funding, we would be able to provide more resources to support our financial key opinion leaders (KOL) in Asia, speed up our hiring process in these regions, and continue to improve the user experiences of our product and better serve our users overall. We believe that there is huge potential for growth in 2022 and beyond,” StockViva Co-Founder and Chairman Samuel Wan said in a statement.
Launched in 2018, StockViva is a FinTech firm running a KOL platform in Asia where the financial KOL would be able to provide online education service in real time and support online trading connection with different financial institutions in Asia. It has operations in
China, Taiwan, Singapore and New Zealand (under the name of MeowMeow).
StockViva mobile application and technology provide real time online education services by financial KOLs, and online trading connection with different financial institutions in Asia—covering a wide range of financial products such as United States, Hong Kong, and Taiwan stocks, along with foreign exchange and derivatives. The social elements in the mobile application have nurtured a strong community-like bond between retail investors and financial KOLs. As retail investors gain knowledge from the financial KOLs, the financial KOLs simultaneously build up their fan base and reputation in Asia rapidly. StockViva further leverages on their own technology to build its real time data streaming platform that captures and aggregates investment insights from stock markets and sentiment data in their social community.
In order to grow their business quickly, StockViva has adopted a scientific and data-driven approach to run its operations, and this helps acquiring users at a cost that is a third lower than the industry average and enhances the lifetime value of users effectively. Amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, StockViva has achieved over 122 percent growth in revenue and 932 percent growth in trading volume in 2021.
“We are pleased to see the rapid growth of StockViva. StockViva is leading the market of financial key opinion leaders in Hong Kong and we are excited to see their expansion to other regions in Asia. We will continue to support startups like StockViva and jointly contribute to the development of the Hong Kong Fintech industry,” said Cindy Chow, Executive Director of Alibaba Hong Kong Entrepreneurs Fund.
Meanwhile, Farquhar VC Chief Investment Officer Jason Su said :“Advancement in technology has brought about the democratisation of finance, StockViva stands for responsible democratisation of financial investment, focusing on delivering solid, credible and insightful content to consumers.”
Stephen Sze from Hong Huan Group, on the other hand, said :“StockViva team emphasizes on fast market iteration and customer insight, they have huge vision and great ambition, all at the same time to capture tremendous opportunities in the region.”
AngelHub Chief Executive Officer Karen Contet also said : “The team at StockViva came out as dynamic. We have been impressed with their ability to scale the business over the past two years. They have demonstrated this not only by the growth in revenue but also by the network they have built in order to expand their business. The leadership at StockViva has futuristic mindset and we are indeed very excited to come onboard and look forward to being a partner in their journey ahead.”
According to the statement, StockViva aims to make financial education and analysis in real time using scalable technology platforms.
“If you read a financial newspaper in the morning, it doesn’t help you make any investment decisions in the afternoon, as the market has already changed and the information is outdated. Financial education and analysis have to be in real time. This is the reason why we built a technology platform where retail investors will be able to find an appropriate financial KOL online for real time education and analysis during trading hours,” said Wan.
Cited annual reports published by various stock exchanges in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and South East Asia, StockViva said the total number of retail investors in the region is growing rapidly. Between 2014 and 2020, the total number of retail investors is growing at an average rate of 21 percent annually, reaching over 27 million in 2020. It is expected that the total number of retail investors will further grow to 42 million in 2030. If taking other parts in Asia into consideration, the total number of retail investors will be over 100 million.
It also said that the COVID-19 pandemic has further boosted the growth in the number of retail investors in recent years. When they spend more time at home, they tend to pay more attention to the secondary market online. Nevertheless, the retail investors may not be able to analyse the market given their limited investment knowledge and they need quality education from professionals.
“This is where we can offer help to the retail investors. Based on our technology and big data analysis, we will connect retail investors with the appropriate financial KOL on StockViva. The financial KOL would then be able to provide real time education services online to solve the problems of retail investors directly,” Wan added.