Tom Blomfield-backed activist investment platform Tulipshare launches ‘right to repair’ campaign against Apple

If the ‘Meme stock’ trading at the start of 2021 taught us anything, it’s just how influential retail investors can be when they manage to organise.

A new investment platform, Tulipshare, is trying to give the explosion of stock market interest a purpose by offering fractional share investing coupled with activist shareholder campaigns.

The first, calling on tech giant Apple to open up its repaid policies to enable third-party technicians to fix your iPhone, has quickly garnered over $33,000 worth of investments—enough to trigger engagement with Apple’s investor relations team.

Once the shares have been held for a year, Tulipshare will be able to submit an activist shareholder proposal at Apple’s next AGM.

Tulipshare only launched in July with an 8-person team and $1m in pre-seed funding from Speedinvest and angel investors, including Monzo founder Tom Blomfield.

Founder and CEO Antoine Argouges described the idea as “to give a voice to the everyday individual, to encourage retail investors to rethink their investment strategies.”

“We want to shine a spotlight on the global issues no other investment platform has done to date, and, in turn, truly make progress in fighting the injustices committed by major corporations where, traditionally, major decisions are kept to a handful of individuals.”

Two other campaigns are also live, one calling on Coca-Cola to produce plastic bottles made from 100 per cent recycled material and one calling on Amazon to ensure fair and safe working environments for its warehouse workers.

Customers can invest in fractional shares for as little as £1, but unlike commission-free trading services like Freetrade, Tulipshare does charge several fees.

DriveWealth powers its trading and, as such, all trades are made in Dollars, for which a sub-0.75 per cent conversion fee is charged, along with a one-off transaction fee of between 0.5 and 7 per cent depending on the size of the investment.

Tulipshare says it is deliberately unsuitable for day traders, as its customers are looking for lasting change, which will require long-term investments.