8 Securities Closes $8.7 million USD for Mobile Expansion In Asia

HONG KONG, Nov. 11, 2014 /PRNewswire/ — 8 Securities, a social trading service for individual investors, today announced it has closed $8.7 million USD in Series B financing. This brings the total equity capital raised to $20 million USD. Route 66 Ventures in the United States led the round with participation from China Growth Capital who is based in Beijing. 8 Securities’ original investors, Velocity Capital B.V. and Leitmotiv Private Equity, also participated. The company now has investors spanning the United States, Europe, Hong Kong and Mainland China. 8 Securities says it will use the capital to accelerate its mobile investing services across the region.

Route 66 Ventures Managing Partner Michael Meyer will join 8 Securities’ board of directors. “There is no question that Asia’s consumer financial services landscape is going to be completely reshaped by online and mobile solutions. Dynamic companies such as 8 Securities will drive that change as incumbent brokerages and banks are handicapped by legacy technology, physical distribution and traditional business models,” said Meyer.

“We have a very clear growth strategy in Asia and it will be led by mobile,” said Mathias Helleu, Chairman of 8 Securities. “Young investors are not well served by our competition today. While older investors may prefer a branch or traditional advisor, the next generation of wealth will be managed on a smartphone.” 8 Securities is preparing to launch a new mobile wealth management service next month. “We intend to disrupt the wealth management and advisory industry with a totally new concept in Asia. We are going to make owning a personalized global portfolio simple, inexpensive and convenient.”

8 Securities has fueled its growth by deploying its technology on Amazon Web Services’ cloud infrastructure. “By deploying our platform in the cloud we are able to scale up our technology operations on demand. This is a very different model than our competitors who run their platforms in traditional data centers. We believe we can run our technology faster and at a significantly lower cost than traditional brokerages. This facilitates profitable growth,” said Cedric Roll, Chief Technology Officer of 8 Securities.

About 8 Securities

8 Securities is Asia’s first private social network and global trading platform for individual investors. 8 Securities has licensed offices in Hong Kong and Tokyo. The company’s customers hold $750 million USD in assets with the firm. The company was founded by the management team of E*TRADE International.