Memo V
Exciting Updates, Do it Together Investing, Notable Industry News
We’re back!
To the 14 new subscribers…welcome! Murdock Memo is a monthly newsletter focusing on the early-stage startup ecosystem in Canada 🇨🇦
If you want to learn more about the author or what the memo offers, click below:
Exciting Updates
To start off the new year I have some noteworthy news to share!
The first update I’m happy to report is my joining the team at Impression Ventures. Leaving Wealthsimple was a tough decision, however I’m thrilled about the opportunity to break into the venture scene and help the team at Impression invest in FinTech focused startups across North America.
Impression is a Seed to Series A focused venture fund investing in founders across Canada and United States building game changing financial technology. Fun fact, Impression was the first to invest in Wealthsimple back in 2013.
If you are building in the FinTech space or know someone who is, reach out!
My second update is regarding Murdock Memo.
When I started writing this newsletter, I didn’t expect many to subscribe or for the content to grow a loyal readership. Yet, after four publications I have close to 100 subscribers and content which is regularly shared. Therefore, it is time to give the newsletter a refresh! Starting in February’s publication, the following changes will be made:
Publications will now be monthly, no longer bi-weekly
Each memo will focus on the story of a Canadian founder
Visuals and content will be improved
Insights on emerging markets in the tech space
The revised focus of Murdock Memo will be to share the stories of the amazing individuals building from coast to coast. Highlighting their successes, failures, and how they hope to change their respective communities!
Today’s edition, Memo V, will be the last to adhere to the old structure.
I hope you enjoy and I appreciate your continued support!
🙌
Do-it-Together-Investing (DITT)
INVRS | Hamilton, ON | Fintech
So I can't be the only one who at least glanced at the sub reddit r/wallstreetbets during the early months of 2020!
During a global pandemic an unfounded wave of interest in the financial markets emerged. I won’t go deep into the meme stock craze as it has already been extensively covered, but I will share two quick data points to show its impact.
Retail trade accounts saw massive growth in 2020.
It wasn’t just the traditional brokerages that experienced growth, but rather the result of Fintech players like Robinhood, which at times was crippled by the growth in trade volumes.
The most compelling result of this surge isn’t necessarily the number of new individuals opening brokerage accounts but rather what drove this phenomenon in the first place. A slew of young individuals flocked to Reddit to join in on the collaboration of financial analysis (albeit not all sound) and the discovery of new investment opportunities. This subreddit community is nothing to mock, it was so united in its position it motivated Jim Cramer to call its short position on GameStop (GME) the “squeeze of a lifetime”.
I started thinking, how can this subreddit evolve into its own niche social media platform. This phenomenon is nothing new. Originating as a community for competitive athletes to share their race results with friends is Strava, now worth $1.5B1. More niche platforms like Houzz for those interested in architecture and interior design, Letterboxd for movie lovers, and Goodreads for novel enthusiasts.
Where is the social platform designed for modern-day investors?
Well…as of today there are quite a few sprouting up:
65% of the companies above were founded in the last 24 months!
Launched in 2007, Etoro was originally a FX trading platform. It has considerably evolved over the decade, moving into stocks, cryptocurrencies, mobile applications, social features and most recently banking. The platform displays each user’s relevant data, such as gain percentage, risk score and portfolio composition, allowing others to copy their investments.
Newer platforms like Wolf Financial, Wizest, and Finary are leveraging community and collaboration to allow for better financial decision making amongst the younger socially-minded crowds. Wizest allows users to subscribe to vetted financial advisors for a small fee and even copy their trades with one click. While Finary and Wolf Financial are building collaborative analysis tools to allow for groups to share strategies.
Taking it to another level is Qooore. Simply put, if TikTok was a trading platform…
Qooore allows users to make trades through their platform in addition to allowing influencers to create their own streams and content to share their insights and investment decisions.
By digging more into the Do-it-Together-Investing space, I came across a group of fellow McMaster grads building a platform that is focused on creating a community for finance focused individuals to collaborate on financial analysis and crowd source investment ideas.
The team an INVRS realized three things about the youthful investor:
would rather make decisions with others than by themselves,
are tired of paying subscription fees,
and Reddit was no place to share technical analysis
INVRS would be the solution. Users can use the platform for free, collaborate with friends and use built-in investment tools to share analysis on their investment decisions. Prioritizing transparency and honest reporting, INVRS allows users to connect their brokerage accounts to share their past trades. The community members will be evaluated based on contributions and performance, thus discouraging any bad actors from providing poor financial advice.
What INVRS prioritizes over other platforms is their focus on building collaborative tools to conduct model building and technical analysis, for financially driven individuals who take investment decisions more seriously than a Tiktok stream.
Founded by Jennifer Cameron as a passion project to better manage her finances and personal investments, INVRS has already drawn in a waitlist of 2K individuals, with many alpha testing the product as we speak.
Notable Industry News
MaRS IAF - Toronto, ON - Ontario’s most active seed fund announced a new $100M fund focused on investing in seed stage companies across the province2. IAF, which is the investment arm of MaRS Discovery District, still has 105 active investments in their portfolio and with this new Graphite fund will be able to continue their mission of investing across Ontario.
Inkbox - Toronto, ON - Earlier this month, Toronto based Inkbox was acquired by BIC. The acquisition will allow the company to leverage BIC’s supply chain and resources to lead growth in the skin creative category.
Frontier Collective - Vancouver, BC - The west coast has made considerable strides lately in competing to become Canada’s tech hub. In my opinion stemming from two factors, repeat founders and their traction in emerging technology, aka NFTs and Web3. Pioneered by Dapper Labs, the community has only become stronger and has seen the creation of multiple NFT and metaverse focused deep-tech companies over the last 12 months.
Composer - Toronto, ON - No-code your way to making your own hedge fund is what Composer is trying to accomplish. Raising a sizeable $6.7M seed round lead by First Round Capital, with participation from Golden Ventures, Draft Ventures, and Basecamp fund. The Toronto based company is building the tools for low tech individuals to create hedge fund like investment strategies.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/strava-raises-110-million-as-more-people-seek-outdoor-exercise-amid-pandemic-11605528000
https://betakit.com/mars-launches-new-100-million-graphite-iaf-fund/
Great article Quinn! Glad to see you are writing again.