While living in his car as a student athlete, Ronnie Green decided to get into stock trading. And within a year, he had turned a few thousand dollars into more than $100,000. Now, he’s using algorithms to open up the investing game to others.
To do that, Green launched AlgoPear to helps retail traders automate their short-term trading. And as the Dallas-based startup ends the completion of Impact Ventures’ latest IV Accelerator program, the company is gearing up to raise funds for an anticipated public beta launch at the beginning of next year.
“I started to build AlgoPear in the business of democratizing wealth for billions who face limited access to most prominent wealth generators,” Green, who also serves as AlgoPear’s CEO, told NTX Inno. “Being an underrepresented founder myself, when it comes to investing in our community, we’re not really educated on these types of things and so that was my mission… to educate my community on making wealth more well know. We want to make it accessible and affordable.”
As Green was finding success in college with stock trading, others began to take notice. He ended up starting a group called the Young Millionaires Club to teach others the ins and outs of trading. And as his experience in the industry, working in investments for TD Ameritrade and later founding his own hedge fund, he realized for those new to the markets, the time it takes to analyze and understand markets before making an investment, as well as the cost to do so can keep many from even trying. And worse, causing some that do try to fail.
“I realized they lacked the discipline and they faced a lot of obligations like working two jobs, kids, friends and family… then I realized there’s really no automation resources for this type of trading,” Green said.
In 2019, AlgoPear was launched. Green says he sees the startup’s marketplace almost “like the Airbnb of the investment industry.” When a new user signs up, they are walked through a series of questions to develop an investment profile. Using AI, they are then matched with an algorithm that best fits their needs. After that, investments are automated and connected directly with broker accounts.
Already, TD Ameritrade is a supporting broker for AlgoPear.
“You don’t have to do anything but monitor your account, and we keep you updated that for you… and you can go and live life, and focus on the things that truly matter,” Green said.
AlgoPear isn’t just looking to open up the investing industry to new investors. It’s also looking to help put algorithms that would typically be bought and used by larger firms in the hands of more people, while helping developers along the way. Through its AlgoQuants platform, algorithm developers can sell their software directly to users, avoiding long-term contracts.
“These firms are making billions of dollars off of them but they only get what they sign for the contract,” Green said. “What we’re doing essentially is we’ve found a problem within that community, that they want to expand to this broader market with retail traders but there’s no products out there, and so we want to be that bridge so that they don’t have to be locked into those contracts and they can build their resumes.”
Coming into 2020, AlgoPear raised about $10,000 from friends and family, adding to about $40,000 Green had invested into the company with money from trading. But things took a turn when the pandemic first hit the U.S. and investors backed out of a $500,000 round the company was planning to raise.
However, the pandemic also gave people more time at home and more time to invest into looking into the stock market. And aided by the wave of popularity around investing, partly created by companies like Robinhood, Green said he has seen increased interest in AlgoPear.
“It opened up a lot of eyes… that you can’t just depend on one source of income, you have to have multiple,” Green said. “It really changed the scope and the behavior of people when it comes to investing.”
Since then, things have been picking back up for AlgoPear and its 10-person team. The company recently landed a partnership that will help bring more developers onto its marketplace, and with them algorithms tailored to different markets like crypto. In November, AlgoPear was selected to be a member of Impact Ventures’ IV Accelerator program. And the company is now close to closing on its $500,000 round, Green said.
Once that new funding is secured, AlgoPear is planning a public beta launch at the beginning of next year. As it adds new subscribers and broker partners to the platform, Green said the company is planning to open the marketplace to foreign exchanges. Currently, its focuses is on U.S. exchanges.
“If they want to start with $500, if they want to start with a couple grand or a thousand, they can get that automated with pro algorithms, proven algorithms from people who have done this for years. And they have that stability when it comes to jumping into such a scary market and not knowing what to expect,” Green said. “We want to be a frontier of that marketplace that gives the common investor the same access as the wealthy have access to automation resources like hedge funds. We want to be a marketplace and the centerpiece of that.”
