Huddlestock

Inception

In 2015, Dr Michel van Tol asked me to build an online “Crowd-trading” platform called “Huddlestock”.

Crowd Trading

Crowd-trading is a novel concept. Investors log onto the platform and set up an account. After a bit of KYC, they are provided with a set of Investment possibilities (called Ideas) covering various topics (such as Artificial Intelligence, Sustainable energy, etc. If they like the ideas, they may invest money they have transferred to their Huddlestock account into the idea. The same Investment Ideas are made available to many of the other users of the platform. Huddlestock then sums all the monies together and invests in the assets underlying the idea.

Sometime later, the idea will be “closed” and those assets sold. The profits (if any) are distributed pro-rata back to the Investors in the idea. If the idea is good (read: made money), Huddlestock shares in the profit of the idea along with the Investor.

A key point is that Huddlestock isn’t the originator of the Investment ideas – these are sourced from financial investment companies. They decide what ideas to send and when to close them. Whenever Huddlestock would share in the profits of an Investment Idea, we in turn would share those with the Investment company. This meant everyones interests were aligned.

My Role

I was approached in 2015, shortly before the birth of my daughter to build a full-scale version of Huddlestock. A prototype had already been made by some students but now they wanted a full system. I was hired to design and implement the system.

I was originally brought into the project as a freelancer, but after a few months I agreed to become the full-time CTO.

Technologies

The system was built using a combination of React.js, Node.js, PHP (Plain and Symfony), Go, CSS and HTML. It uses Websockets for simultaneous bi-directional communications between client and server.

Gallery

 

Architecture

I designed a bespoke micro-service architecture sitting atop of the low-level network connection library ZeroMQ.

London

In October 2016 the Huddlestock Team moved into an office at Level39 in Canary Wharf. I hired three software developers to help me build out the platform. My role as CTO included:

• Setting the technology direction
• High and Low-level system design
• Staff Management
• Visual Design work (Front-end interface, emails, print ads, Investor Briefs)

Awards

• Finalist in the Global Startup Awards 2019, in China
• Finalist in the Nordic Startup Awards 2019, selected from 3300 nominations.
• Winner of Best Fintech Startup 2019 in Norway, Nordic Start Up Awards
• 100 of the most innovative Wealthtech companies in the World in 2019, by Fintech Global
• Selected to Lighthouse Development Programme Mastercard 2019
• 1 of 12 companies of Village Capital Fintech Europe 2018 cohort
• Winner of Best Fintech Startup in the Nordics/ Scandinavia 2017, Nordic Startup Awards
• Winner of Best Fintech of the Year in Norway 2017, Nordic Startup Awards
• Global Game Changer in the Wealth Management Industry in 2017 by CB Insights
• Nominated Fintech Innovation of the Year 2017 in UK by Digital Leaders
• Nominated for Nordic Startup Awards 2016 for Best Fintech Company
• Global Finalist 2016, 1 out of 20, of 655 companies, Singapore Fintech Festival
• Nominated for Nordic Startup Awards 2015 for Best Newcomer

Design Work: Investor Briefs

Huddlestock began issuing “Investor Briefs” to all our customers providing Investor information, market commentary and performance information about the company after a while. Originally these documents were rather “verbose and dry” word documents and didn’t have a particularly large uptake. I decided to try and give them more of a “magazine” feel to increase their readership.

It worked. We averaged around 35% readership for our Investor Briefs.