Bengaluru-based Stockal Software Pvt. Ltd, which runs an app-based investment advisory service, has raised its second round of angel funding from a clutch of investors, a top company executive told VCCircle.
According to Stockal co-founder Sitashwa Srivastava, the company has raised $350,000 (Rs 2.25 crore) from existing investors Mohan Alexander, who was the founder of Amba Research that was later acquired by Moody’s, and RNT capital Advisers COO and CFO R. Natarajan.
Vikrant Varshney of SucSEED Venture Partners and New York-based investment banker and portfolio manager Amit Sinha also participated in this round, along with a few other angels.
The money will be used to upgrade the product, penetrate the market further and expand its network of experts. “We are also investing in building a proprietary algorithm that can make an investment decision more easy and personal. We are covering 6.5 million data points per day to recommend stocks suited to an individual’s investment style,†said Srivastava.
In 2015, the company had raised $250,000 in its first round of external funding from Natarajan and Alexander.
The Stockal app, in its earlier avatar, used to analyse social media chatter to provide investment signals for US-listed stocks. Subsequently, it transformed itself to become a personal investing platform with added benchmarks to analyse stocks.
A brokerage platform was added to the app in December 2016 and the company has tied up with 11 brokers, including Fideity and TradeKing for the services.
“On the social media front, we have become mature. We structure it based on your personal investment style. We also provide views on what the future of a company looks like, and its projected revenues over the next few quarters. Then there is news and analyst reports as well,†Srivastava added.
Stockal, which was founded in early 2015 by Srivasta and Vinay Barathwaj, has about 30,000 registered users on its platform.
Srivastava was also the founder CEO of Jade Magnet Online Pvt Ltd, a managed crowd-sourcing platform for creating and marketing support services. Bharathwaj ran a $300-million hedge fund that focussed on carbon credits.
A host of online investment platforms, including Fisdom, Goalwise, Scripbox, and Tauro Wealth, have received funding in the recent past.
Earlier this month, MaxMyWealth, a savings and investment application that helps customers select the best mutual funds, raised an undisclosed amount from two UK-based firms.
Last month, mass market mutual fund investment platform Nivesh.com had raised an angel round from VCCircle founder PV Sahad, former head of investor relations at Infosys Sandeep Shroff and Right Global Infosolutions CEO Rahul Gupta.