Hargreaves Lansdown and eToro heavyweights join board of Wombat Invest

Investment app Wombat Invest is adding two senior executives to its board of advisors ahead of a £10m funding round that the fintech says is close to closing.

David Davies, former Hargreaves Lansdown chief information officer and current CEO of Navos Technologies, and Iqbal Gandham, former managing director of eToro and UK managing director at Ledger, are both joining the advisory team on a three-year deal.

Other advisors to the fintech include investor Chris Adelsbach and James Moore, chief operating officer of Your Parking Space and former UK general manager at Trainline.

Wombat’s CEO and co-founder Kane Harrison also used the announcement to tease his company’s upcoming funding round which will be used to take Wombat into Europe.

“The Series A funding round will support our initial expansion into Europe and help us launch and market some exciting and unique new products and features,” he said. 

“We’re fortunate to have a stellar team of advisers and David and Iqbal will further enhance the wealth of knowledge we have around us as we continue to rapidly scale the business.”

Today Wombat has more than 160,000 customers signed up to invest in its thematic funds and fractional shares, with 15 per cent month on month growth in that number.

Wombat claims to be the cheapest UK platform for ISA investors buying individual stocks, with an annual management fee of 0.1 per cent and a subscription of £1/month.

Looking to Europe Harrison and co will have a much larger competitive market to address, with 100m potential users but also well-funded competitors like Raisin and Trade Republic.