Tastytrade, the Chicago fintech company offering free, accessible content about trading and finance for active investors, has invested $20 million into a new company it's building.
Dough, which is named after tastytrade’s previous front-end trading application that shut down in 2017, is being led by the former director of trading and operations at TD Ameritrade, Victor Jones. He said the new company, a wholly owned subsidiary of tastytrade, is an independent broker dealer where users can trade commission-free stock.
“We repurposed the name, so it is certainly not the same company,” Jones said.
For $1 per month, Dough provides users with investing opportunities in an approachable way. Jones said the startup is poised to be a major competitor with other investing and wealth management platforms that don’t make trading available to the average person. Dough says it can reach a new generation of investors, regardless of “age or account size,” by making it cheaper to trade stock. Dough will begin accepting customers in September.
“In five years, paying for commissions to trade stock will be about as common as paying for a landline,” Jones said.
A couple years ago, Chicago fintech startup M1 Finance dropped fees from its investing app, which initially drew some criticism from its competitors. However, the no-fee model resulted in its user base skyrocketing.
With the backing of tastytrade, Dough has the fintech expertise of tastytrade's co-CEOs Tom Sosnoff and Kristi Ross. Last summer, tastytrade raised $20 million in a Series C round to grow its trading and investment platform.
Being owned by tastytrade also gives Dough access to an established engineering team that can help build out the Dough platform, Jones said. Additionally, he expects Dough’s team of 11 to double within the next year.
“We’re really about focusing on real people and real investment needs,” Jones said. “Our focus is on better decision making.”
