Sproutfi wants to expand the portfolio of investors who only think about crypto

Digital brokerage created by the Americans Ruben Guerrero and Tyler Richie wants to create an investor community

Avenue was the forerunner platform for overseas retail investor applications, but it is no longer in a lone race. XP has recently launched into this dispute, a terrain that also has competitors such as Banco Inter, Bradesco and capitalized startups such as Nomad, the fintech created by serial entrepreneur Patrick Sigrist.

In a space that seems increasingly cramped, is there any chance for a fledgling startup? Americans Ruben Guerrero and Tyler Richie think so. The duo is behind Sproutfi, a digital brokerage that wants to burst the bubble and popularize overseas investments across Latin America — starting with Brazil.

Founded in 2021, Sproufi has already raised two rounds of capital, which gives some leeway (in times of risk aversion, cash is king) for a fee-free business that will need that commercial appeal to gain traction among retail investors — in a risk-averse world.

Since it was created, the startup has raised $11 million. In the first round, a year ago, it raised R$5.7 million with Marathon Ventures. The second contribution took place in September, bringing resources from Y Combinator and Public.com.

Based in São Paulo, Guerrero has worked at Goldman Sachs and the American brokerage E*Trade Financial. The entrepreneur got to know Brazil in 2008, when he came to the country to work at Orc, a fintech that offers technology for high frequency trade. Unintentionally, the trajectory connected Guerrero to partner Tyler Richie, who only didn’t leave Brazil in early 2020 because the covid-19 arrived. Nubank’s first data scientist, Richie ended up taking on the challenge of founding Sproutfi.

Sproutfi’s app is now available — the company is regulated in the United States and uses the Levycam brokerage as a partner in Brazil — but the startup’s main functionality is still in the testing phase. Guerrero and Richie’s idea is to differentiate the brokerage from a community for exchanging ideas on investments abroad, a kind of fintwit within the Sproutfi app.

In practice, the startup seeks an investor profile that is somewhat different from houses like XP and Avenue. With the appeal of making it possible to invest abroad from just US$ 1, with no commissions or minimum balance, Sproutfi wants to reach less wealthy young people who have already made a foray into cryptocurrencies — curiously, a more popular business than B3 in Brazil. — but they were still far from the world of stocks.

By fishing in the same aquarium as cryptocurrencies, Guerrero will have the challenge of showing investors that a portfolio is not just day trading. “We want them in the long run.” It’s not a trivial bet.

Source: Value Pipeline