Munich Startup: What does your startup do? What problem do you solve?
Sophie Thurner, Beatvest: Beatvest offers its users a beginner-friendly investment environment divided into two stages: education and investing.
Today, it's more important than ever to address one's finances: The burden of inflation in everyday life and the ever-widening pension gap are weighing heavily on the shoulders of younger generations. Beatvest's vision is to give these young people the opportunity to further their education on capital market topics, make fact-based decisions, and build long-term wealth through capital market investments. This makes financial education accessible to a broad audience and tailors it to users using the latest information technology.
How to invest? And in what?
But that's been around for a long time!
On the one hand, there are pure trading platforms like brokers. They offer a solution for users who already know where they want to invest and how investing works. We go even further. We help users determine what type of investment they should invest in and how to go about it. For the vast majority of capital market beginners, the real problem is the transfer of what they've learned through books or videos to actually executing the investment. This is precisely where we come in with Beatvest.
What is your founding story?
We met during a surfing holiday in Fuerteventura. We shared not only a passion for our startup, but also for waves and water. While I had already been active in the capital markets for over 15 years at the time we met and was a veteran in the business thanks to my job at the British Financial Markets Authority, tech startup expert Julia was just beginning to explore the topic. We talked for hours about the hurdles that new investors face. And we discussed possible solutions for opening up the capital market to the masses, thus making it a fairer and better place.
We both quickly realized that something really big could come out of this – 'Finance meets Tech and goes Startup'.
Beatvest: Making the capital market fairer
What have been your biggest challenges so far?
Initially, we faced the challenge of finding the optimal balance between "learning" and "applying what we've learned." Collaboration with financial experts, industry insiders, and educational institutions such as universities and schools shed light on the issue and helped us overcome this hurdle. We received further valuable support from our "Sounding Board." This is a group of 100 users who actively provided us with feedback during the app development and with whom we built the product together.
How are things going?
Shortly before Christmas, we were delighted to announce the release of our app in the Apple App Store. Since then, several thousand users have downloaded our app and are now actively managing their personal financial situation. A result that makes us extremely proud and happy. Nevertheless, we are constantly working hard to improve the app and provide our users with an even better experience.
Munich very attractive
How have you experienced Munich as a startup location so far?
We find Munich a very attractive location for our young company. The large number of first-class universities, in particular, ensures a fantastic interplay of entrepreneurship, research, and exchange. For example, we have already collaborated with the Technical University of Munich on several projects. We have always been very impressed by the expertise and drive of the students and university staff.
Hidden champion or shooting star?
Since we Funding round At the end of January, I would place us in the healthy middle ground between a hidden champion and a shooting star. The resulting public interest has brought us many new users. We both enjoy LinkedIn on the go, so that our users have a constant update on what we are working on and who is behind the Beatvest product.
