Lightyear expands product range with new price alerts feature

Stock trading app Lightyear, which launched in the UK less than a year ago, is continuing to expand its product suite after a successful Series A raise two weeks ago.

The company is now adding price alerts to its range of offerings after rolling out to 19 new countries across Europe and raising $25m.

The new feature allows customers to set a price target for any stock or ETF so that they do not miss out on any buying or selling opportunities.

Founded by early Wise alumni Martin Sokk and Mihkel Aamer, the app was born out of personal frustrations with investing in Europe.

Lightyear now combines multi-currency accounts with access to global markets so customers can invest freely and without hidden fees, it says.

“Since launching last year, we’ve prioritised listening to customers and iterating our product based on their wants and needs,” Lightyear co-founder and CTO Aamer said.

“We’ve seen that many Lightyear users have a price in mind when buying or selling shares,” he added.

“This new feature allows customers to get alerted on price movements of instruments they’re interested in and promptly take desired actions from their mobile phones.”

Since the company launched in the UK last September, it has expanded its product suite with various customer requested features, including limit orders and auto conversions.

It has also tripled its instrument pool to over 3,000.

“Listening to our customers and acting quickly on their feedback is a huge part of our strategy now that we’re focused on helping customers in 20 different countries to invest,” Lightyear user research lead Flora Somogyi said.

“Whenever we launch a new product we spend a great deal of time talking to customers to make sure we’re building the products and features they need. 

“One of the key themes we’ve seen in research so far is our customer’s need to stay on top of what’s happening in their portfolio.” 

Features such as the new price alerts, combined with live news updates through the app, allows customeres to do this, Somogyi said.

The recent European expansion allows customers from 19 Eurozone countries to access thousands of US and European stocks, in addition to ETFs.