We first wrote about Israeli startup eToro way back in 2007 when it launched. Since then investors have put more than $8 million into the company. Today they’ll announce that Social Leverage has led a third round, adding $2.4 million more.
What is eToro? It’s commodity, currency and index trading made fun and social. Yes, you read that correctly. eToro puts the sexy into silver trading. Users make trades via a ridiculously easy (maybe too easy) interface. Start off with fake money and see what you’re made of. Yesterday, for example, I quickly lost about 5% of my fake capital on foolhardy and highly leveraged oil and silver trades when I lost my nerve and bailed out a few minutes after jumping in. Maybe when I abandon my day job and start trading full time I’ll learn to do a little research first.
But I can’t deny that it’s a total blast to use eToro. The service makes buying and selling extremely easy to understand, and users seem to agree. CEO Jonathan Assia tells me that users have traded over $100 billion on eToro to date. The average transaction size, before leverage, is $50. Trades made on the site are public for others to view, and successful traders can get quite a following on the service.
If you forget for a minute that you’re using real money and actually buying and selling stuff you might think you’re in the middle of an online game. In fact, Howard Lindzon, the founder of new investor Social Leverage, calls eToro “Zynga for real men,” referring to the fact that there’s actual money being made and lost while you’re playing the “game.”
Lindzon’s interest is worth noting. The eToro model is much like Lindzon’s StockTwits, which shows stock buys and sells in a Twitter-like stream. Assia won’t comment on whether a partnership with StockTwits is coming, but it isn’t hard to bet that some sort of strategic relationship is coming.
The company, which has 1.5 million registered users, has 120 employees in Israel, New York, Australia and Cyprus.
eToro is the world’s largest social trading and investment network, offering traders easy access to the currency, commodity & equity markets. Thanks to eToro’s innovative trading technologies, traders from all over the world can now invest their money in a simple, enjoyable and transparent way. Through the award winning eToro OpenBook and WebTrader platforms, over 1.75 million traders are empowered to learn from each other, share live trading information and even capitalize on their collective trading power thanks to the...
Social Leverage LLC is a partnership that invests in exceptional entrepreneurs in the technology space. We partner with promising companies, bringing our own entrepreneurial expertise, relationships, and marketing experience to the fore. Our portfolio companies benefit from our hands on involvement in all stages of development. More pointedly, social leverage is about leveraging our extensive network of industry relationships and expertise to help grow great companies and build great products. Investment Criteria With offices on both the West and East coasts,...
BRM Capital is a dynamic venture capital fund investing in early stage, Israel-related software, internet infrastructure, and communications companies. We offer both investors and entrepreneurs one overridingly unique benefit: our passion. We share the passion of our portfolio companies - not just for fiscal success, but for creating and bringing to market technology that improves business processes and quality of life for people worldwide. We harness the talent of committed team players who have been involved in some of the largest...
Cubit Investments is a financial organization. Nothing is publicly known about the organization. If you have more information, please update this profile.
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