In late 2016 QIWI Venture invested an undisclosed amount in Simple Invest, a Moscow-based startup which is developing a mobile trading app. The deal has just been revealed by Russian venture blog Firrma.ru based on exchanges with QIWI Venture.
The yet-to-be-released app, dubbed ‘Russian Robinhood,’ will allow Russian users to invest in real time in the Moscow and New York stock exchanges. It looks like a copycat of Californian startup Robinhood.
The US startup and its Russian analogue aim to make stock trading accessible to anyone, sparing users the complexities and costly commissions of more traditional trading platforms.
Launched in 2013, Qiwi Venture is the investment arm of QIWI Group, a major, NASDAQ-listed Russian electronic payment operator..
Even the site design of “Russian Robinhood” has been inspired by its US model.
