Kevin Tang and Wyatt Raich used to work in digital assets at BlackRock, where they helped the company pivot from its loud skepticism of crypto to being one of Wall Street’s major players in the sector. During this time, they came to feel it was too difficult for people overseas to participate in common investment opportunities like purchasing U.S. stocks. That’s why they co-founded HelloTrade, a mobile-first, blockchain-powered trading platform.
The company announced on Thursday that it raised $4.6 million in a first round of funding from Dragonfly Capital, with backing from Mirana Ventures, along with angel investors.
“We see a huge market opportunity to make these traditional assets such as stocks and commodities accessible to anyone around the world with an internet connection,” Tang, co-founder and CEO of HelloTrade, said in an interview with Fortune. “We believe that the next frontier of blockchain adoption will be the movement of these traditional markets on chain.”
HelloTrade aims to give investors around the world access to U.S. assets. For example, people in Vietnam or Indonesia may want to buy Tesla stock. But through their current brokerage systems, those aren’t easily accessible. By using crypto technology, HelloTrade plans to solve that problem. The platform also offers perpetual futures, which give customers more exposure to an asset than they would have in cash on the platform.
HelloTrade’s value proposition is similar to that of trading platforms like Robinhood and Revolut. Tang says those companies can be clunky and hard to use, and that HelloTrade will focus on building a better user interface.
The startup’s product has not launched yet, but Tang said he expects it to launch at the end of this year or the beginning of next year. The company currently has about 10 employees.
At BlackRock, Tang and Raich, HelloTrade’s co-founder and CTO, helped develop the firm’s crypto offerings. Tang worked as senior director on its digital assets team, and Raich was the head of engineering at its digital asset lab. During their tenure, the company released the iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) and iShares Ethereum Trust (ETHA) ETFs, funds that both had record debuts on the stock market and were among the first crypto ETFs to launch.
The two HelloTrade co-founders aren’t the only ones bringing their legacy finance talents to the crypto world. In a report from last month, the well known venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz’s crypto arm found that workers coming into crypto tend to come from a traditional finance background. This blending of Wall Street and crypto coincides with President Donald Trump’s friendly policies toward the sector. Since last year’s election, big banks like JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs have developed their blockchain technology.
Tang and Raich often heard a saying at BlackRock: you spend decades building up trust, and you can lose it in a matter of minutes. It’s an ethos they have brought to HelloTrade, which is why they plan to spend their new capital in part to educate individuals around the world about the benefits of blockchain technology, and to invest in the safety and security of their product.