Fintech startup UMushroom secures CHF 2 million seed capital

There is a plethora of information for potential investors to jumpstart their investment journey. However, this mass of information, which oftentimes is saturated, unstructured, and difficult to understand, deters many investors from making decisions. Two international banking executives, Luba Schönig and Tonia Zimmermann, who both worked at Credit Suisse and respectively had their careers at renowned banks such as Lehman Brothers and Julius Bär, and J.P. Morgan and Goldman Sachs understood this problem and made it their mission to demystify the investment information.

In April 2020, the co-founders started developing UMushroom, a new digital platform helping users to upskill investment knowledge and make investment decisions in an intuitive way. The platform – consisting of around 4,000 stocks; 2,500 ETFs and over 80,000 funds – provides structured information based on research analyst ratings, social media sentiment and UMushroom community knowledge to enable investors to gain quick insight into a given stock. "Thanks to our best-in-class technology and carefully tailored information, choosing investments is fast, easy, and exciting for all investors," says Luba Schönig.

Viewed as a social media platform for investments, users can rate and comment on stocks, funds, ETFs, and other users’ investments strategies to build their own portfolios and to share their knowledge with the UMushroom community. Users can also follow other users' portfolios, build their own community of followers and gain the recognition of the crowd. Since the launch in August 2021, more than 2,000 members have subscribed to the platform.

For the B2B segment, UMushoom works with institutions such as banks, brokers and asset managers proving them with a dashboard and as a communication channel to provide their clients. The startup already collaborates with three paying clients while onboarding more clients. Tonia Zimmermann, co-founder of UMushroom says: "Our goal is to bring a new balance to the given structures in the financial market and to enable a new way of collaboration."

The company has recently completed its CHF 2 million seed financing round with a large private investor in the Tech space. The proceeds will flow into growing the platform with further features, certificates, and crypto-assets. The company also plans to build a mobile app, onboard more institutional clients, hire new employees to join the existing team of ten, and grow its marketing activities. Plans to expand into Germany and Austria are also underway.

(RAN)