London based Stocks and Options trading app startup Investa has announced that it has raised £700K in its first crowdfunding campaign. Prior to the campaign, over £1 million was raised from a group of serial entrepreneurs, traders, financial markets leaders and hedge fund CEOs, taking the total now raised to £1.8 million.

Investa’s oversubscribed crowdfunding campaign hit its funding target in under two hours, and was 200% overfunded in less than two weeks. The round was closed six days early after capacity was reached, with 500+ investors participating in the round.

Investa, founded by ex-Citi Options brokers as well as the co-founder and former CTO of Freetrade, Ian Fuller, has built what it calls the UK’s first zero-commission listed options trading app for on-the-go traders. Investa aims to level the playing field by providing an accessible means of trading both stocks and options.

The investment round will help the Investa team to maintain its speed of development and scale marketing operations as they approach launch. Investa’s website (investa.co.uk) now shows a “join waitlist” signup box. According to the website, Investa will act as an appointed representative of FCA regulated broker Richdale Brokers & Financial Services Ltd.

Alec Beasley, Co-founder and CEO, commented,

“We estimate that only 2% of UK investors have traded an option compared to 20% in the US, so there’s a clear opportunity to bridge this gap. With Investa, we are aiming to make the options market more accessible, and the incredible interest in our first crowdfunding campaign proves that there are investors out there who want what we are offering.”

About Investa

Investa is founded by ex-Citi Options brokers who spent their days trading options, and also where they identified various problems within the market. So, they set out to build a platform that puts the investor first. Building the platform is Ian Fuller, once CTO and co-founder of Freetrade, bringing with him a track record of building intuitive, user-friendly platforms.