TradingView blurs the line between investing and social media, raises $298M

The news: The US- and UK-based retail investing platform reached a $3 billion valuation. It’s D2C-focused, but over the next few years, it plans to integrate its services with major brokerage platforms to drive user acquisition.

What’s its appeal: Founded in 2011, TradingView’s platform brings together trading services with market analysis, like charts on price patterns, and a social network. Users can share their analysis and trades with each other to compare strategies and build a community.

• The combination has struck a chord with retail investors. Accounts created in TradingView increased by 400% in the last 18 months.
• Its 30 million monthly users are located in 180 countries. For context, global digital broker eToro, which also offers a social news feed and the ability to mimic other traders, has 20 million users.

The big takeaway: TradingView’s rapid user growth indicates that a large slice of these newcomers seek to integrate social media into their trading.

• We’ve previously spoken at length about how the pandemic has driven the retail investing boom that’s been so beneficial for digital brokers. But slowing retail trading volume shows we are past the spike. To maintain the growth momentum, brokers now need to adapt their offerings to this new class of investors.
• For many of these investors, discussing trades on forums like r/WallStreetBets is a key part of the investing experience. These discussions have led to meme stock phenomena and to the rise of financial influencers, who share tactics on platforms like TikTok.

Bottom line: Brokers that don’t keep this investor segment engaged by adding a social media component to their platforms risk losing out to competitors like eToro. This will push demand for B2B offerings like Commonstock—a social network that sits on top of brokerage accounts, which just raised $25 million—and TradingView, which is now seeking major brokerage partners.