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Lightyear, the UK fintech startup that promises users commission-free trading on US and European stocks, is officially expanding into Europe starting today.
To power the expansion, Lightyear sees land in 19 new markets, including the Baltics and more. Western European, London-based Lightyear is led by US venture capital firm Lightspeed in a Series A round of funding and counts Richard Branson as its sole shareholder, with participation from other prominent backers including Virgin Group.
Trading shares
Lightyear is one of several stock trading companies that have emerged on the scene, promising people to easily invest their money in some of the world’s biggest companies, from Apple and Alibaba to Spotify and Tesla. On top of that, users can invest in what are known as exchange-traded funds (ETFs).
Lightyear, which started out of hiding in the UK last year, has entered a space that includes local incumbents such as the well-funded Freetrade, which has graced the UK with Robinhood, not to mention long-standing players across the Atlantic. Launch plans in 2020.
Lightyear considers its biggest USP as a business model as long as it does not charge account fees or commissions on any trade. Instead, it relies solely on foreign exchange fees — but after that charges just 0.35% on conversions above £3,000 ($3,500) per month. But once the user it has After the conversion, they keep their money in a local currency account and continue to pay no extra fees on each transaction.
In many ways, this is similar to how other fintechs work, such as Wise (formerly TransferWise), which allows users to receive and pay money without paying a lot of money. And this similarity is more than a coincidence, because Lightyear is an early Wizz employee, Martin Sock and Mihkel Amer, Wizz co-founder. Dave Hinrichus is also a Lightyear investor.
Founders of Lightyear. Image Credits: Tom Harrison
Several lightyears
Things can get a little confusing given the number of startups with the same name launched in recent years. There’s another UK-based fintech, albeit focused on accounting, like VC-backed Dutch startup Lightyear, which is all about electric cars. And let’s not forget Lightyear, a New York-based telecom procurement service.
But that interesting narrative aside, Lightyear (one of the stock trades) has enough differences to stand out in a crowded field that promises simplicity and clarity. And less than a year after it first launched to UK users, it has now grown its potential user base by orders of magnitude.
Lightyear’s expansion includes the following markets: Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia and Spain.
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