BUX closes $80m round, appoints new CEO, sets sights on UK expansion

“We want to become the largest neo broker in Europe,” said Yorick Naeff this morning, the newly appointed CEO of Bux.

Naeff, formerly COO of Bux, takes over from co-founder Nick Bortot, on the day that the Amsterdam based firm has also closed an $80m (€67m) funding round led by Prosus Ventures and Tencent.

Additional new investors in the round include ABN Amro Ventures, Citius, Optiver, and Endeit Capital. Existing investors HV Capital and Velocity Capital Fintech Ventures also participated.

“Younger generations in Europe now realise that investing is one of the few viable ways left to create a stable financial future. With this new funding round, BUX will continue to spearhead innovation by implementing advanced features to further shape the future of how Europeans invest.”, said Yorick Naeff,BUX’s new CEO. 

Speaking to journalists on audio-only social media platform Clubhouse, Naeff said Europe is seeing an “Americanisation” of its retail investing market.

“The future is in self-directed investing,” he said.

Bux launched its zero-commission trading business last year in Germany, France, Austria and Belgium and says it has seen its assets under management double as well as the number of active users grow six-fold throughout the year. 

“We’re the largest in Netherlands and Belgium and we’re seeing huge appetite in France and Germany and Austria as well. We’ll be going to Ireland in a few weeks. Capturing that market potential is on our radar” he said.

Bux has stiff competition, though. Freetrade, well established in the UK, has set its sights on European expansion with France it’s first international market it will expand to.

Bitpanda too announced yesterday that it is launching fractional shares and ETFs alongside its crypto offering.

“Our main focus is the millennial generation but the older generation are still overpaying and for this group who are more wealthy we are definitely a go-to platform for the future,” said Naeff

So what about the UK? Out-going CEO Nick Bortot expressed his concern on the UK in light of the Brexit timeline at the AltFi Festival of Finance 2020.

Yorick, who is based in London says the UK is “a very attractive market”.

"With Brexit happening it complicated things a little bit from a legal perspective. We have an FCA license, we have a London office so offering Bux Zero in the UK is a no-brainer. We will definitely do that as soon as possible,” he said.