Wizest, a Cleveland-founded fintech startup, has closed a $1.7 million seed investment round with participation from local investors that include North Coast Ventures and JumpStart.
Wizest is an investment platform and application that takes a community approach to investing, North Coast Ventures said in a statement.
The funding round was led by Aperture Venture Capital, the Philadelphia-based seed-stage fintech fund and corporate partner network that invests in diverse founders.
According to North Coast Ventures, the fintech startup with offices in Cleveland, Dallas, Miami and Los Angeles plans to use its new capital for:
- Product development by recruiting new talent.
- Customer acquisition by launching as a B2C model but also exploring B2B/B2B2C partnerships.
- Support functions with a focus on compliance and governance.
Instead of picking stocks as they would on investing apps such as Robinhood, investors pick people on Wizest, building teams of financial experts who invest on their behalf, North Coast Ventures said.
"Wizest is positioned to make a big impact on the stock investment sector by providing easy access to experts, significantly reducing the intimidation factor people have with buying stocks," said Hardik Desai, managing partner of investing at JumpStart Ventures, in a statement.
Wizest's vision to reduce wealth inequality and make investing more approachable and transparent resonates with financial institution investors, said Todd Federman, managing director of North Coast Ventures, in a statement.
Investments from industry names such as Apex Clearing, a leading custody and clearing firm, and Karl Roessner, former CEO at E-Trade, "validate the potential of our model," said Axel Thibon, Wizest's CEO, who co-founded the company in 2019, in a statement.
After earning an MBA from MIT Sloan and studying at universities in Spain and France, Thibon held positions as head of strategy and transformation for City National Bank and Sabadell United Bank, both in the Miami area, according to his LinkedIn page.
Thibon also managed VirtualBank for Sabadell United and launched another virtual bank, TotalDirectBank, from scratch for City National, North Coast Ventures said.
Thibon moved to Cleveland with his wife when she was offered a job at University Hospitals, according to TechOhio.
