With the social trading phenomenon in full swing, it isn’t really surprising that more capital will be thrown at companies looking to reproduce the recent success of firms such as Robinhood, eToro, and NAGA Group.

To that end Invstr, a London, New York and Istanbul based eight-year old startup calling itself a “leading social investment app”, has announced that it has raised $20 million, doubling the $20 million invested to date in the company in a series of early stage financings. The new funds are being invested in Invstr in the form of a Series A convertible offering placed with existing investors including Ventura Capital, Finberg, Jari Ovaskainen (the seed investor behind Supercell), and Rick Haythornthwaite, former global Chairman of Mastercard.

Invstr stated that it differentiates itself from other investment apps via its educational platform with an investing Academy, and live simulated portfolios to ensure users are capable of understanding the markets and making more informed investing decisions before they risk their real money. The company said that new, advanced analytics now available in the app — coupled with Invstr’s existing educational resources — truly democratize investing by empowering anyone to learn about the markets and then invest more confidently to start building wealth.

In addition to Invstr’s Fantasy Finance game, which offers the ability to manage a virtual $1 million portfolio and learn about the markets in a risk-free way, users can now open Invstr+ accounts in order to:

• Make commission-free trades of stocks, including purchasing fractions of shares with as little as $5.
• Sign up for secure digital banking in minutes and enjoy checking accounts, savings accounts, debit cards, bill pay and instant peer-to-peer transfers with no minimum balance requirements.
• Save, spend or invest their money using their Invstr+ accounts without ever needing to move money from one place to another.

Every user gets to invest smarter with free access to the app’s new Invstr Pro offering for the first 90 days and then $3.99/month. Invstr Pro subscribers will be able to:

• View their own Invstr Score, performance Stats, portfolio risk, behavioral analytics, daily return analysis and performance drilldown to track and improve their performance.
• View each stock’s Invstr Score, community sentiment, performance metrics, benchmark comparison, factor analysis, fundamentals and analyst recommendations.
• Use the app’s Portfolio Builder to construct personalized single stock portfolios and test different risk preferences.
• Access live data about stocks, commodities, currencies, crypto and other instruments including technical studies, such as RSI, MACD and comparison charts not available in other apps.

Invstr said it is pre-releasing the iOS version of the upgraded app to meet retail demand.

Kerim Derhalli, founder and CEO of Invstr commented:

“There is a revolution going on in retail investing. Invstr is here to support that revolution against the new and old dark forces of the financial establishment. We’ve taken the best investment techniques from the rich and made them available to everyone. We help our community members understand their individual investing style and performance, choose stocks that suit their portfolios, share ideas publicly, in groups or private messages, test out their strategies in Fantasy Finance® before they take any real risk and then perform all of their banking and brokerage needs in a single place. Our members are winning the fight. Our real money $100,000 Challenge and Invstr Fantasy League champions are spectacularly outperforming the market and Wall St.”

Kerim Derhalli founded Invstr after seeing first-hand how a lack of knowledge and confidence bars individuals from starting to invest. After spending 30 years in senior leadership positions at Deutsche Bank, Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch and JPMorgan, Derhalli set out to democratize access to financial education by creating Invstr so that anyone, anywhere could learn how to invest.

The new investing services are being provided in partnership with Apex Clearing, which formerly provided execution and settlement services to Robinhood, helping it scale the business up to millions of users. Digital banking services are being offered through a partnership with Vast Bank, which provides agile, high-tech services to its customers along every step of their financial journey. Invstr user data is also protected by technology from Okta, the leading secure identity platform. Okta is a provider of security solutions, such as login authentication, and used by companies and organizations including the Department of Defense and T-Mobile.