The round valued the neo broking app at $5.3 billion.

Germany’s cut-price, mobile-based stock trading app Trade Republic, which is said to have copied Robinhood’s business model, made European history by raising $900 million in a Series C round. American venture capital firm Sequoia led the funding, with additional backing from new investors TCV and Thrive Capital. Existing shareholders including Accel, Founders Fund, and Creandum also participated. (CNBC)

Of the amount of $900 million, $150 million went to early investor Sino, which sold out its stake in a secondary sale.

Trade Republic: European footprint

Trade Republic is a fully licensed bank since late 2018, unlike Robinhood. Its broking markets are currently limited to Germany, Austria and France, and the new funds will come in handy for expanding to new territories. Co-founder Christian Hecker told TechCrunch that the startup intended to cover all of Europe for its services.

Like in banking, fintechs are now trying to take away customers from the legacy broking outfits. Startups such as Bux, eToro, Revolut, Freetrade, as well as crypto-only startups like Bitpanda are all trying to take market share every which way they can. In some cases, their trading costs are 20X cheaper than the broking incumbents.

Trade Republic makes money from a flat 1 euro  ($1.22) fee it charges per trade.

It currently has more than 1 million customers and 400 employees.

Assets under management are in excess of 6 billion euros.

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