Christine Kiefer’s company (centre) is supported by Verena Pausder (on the left) and Lea-Sophie Cramer, among others.
(Photo: Ride Capital)
Frankfurt The virtual asset management Ride Capital receives prominent financial support: The entrepreneurs and business angels Lea-Sophie Cramer and Verena Pausder as well as the professional soccer player Mario Götze together with other investors are investing a total of three million euros in the fintech.
Since it was founded, the Berlin company has collected a good eight million euros. The young company plans to use the money to develop into a digital private bank. Since the launch of the platform in September 2020, the fintech has served more than 1,200 active customers, with assets under management totaling EUR 250 million.
The customer groups include traders, entrepreneurs, founders and private individuals who hold shares in start-ups. The business account is free for customers. According to their own statements, the Berlin founding duo Christine Kiefer and Felix Schulte are developing “a digital private bank for customers who usually have liquid assets between 0.5 and three million euros” with Ride Capital.
In Pausder’s view, wealth management isn’t just for the super-rich. “Rather, investments, pensions and wealth management are also relevant for everyone else.”
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According to Ride Capital, finfluencers, athletes or artists only have irregular sales, so be prepared for that. So far, the focus has been on asset management GmbHs to save taxes. Now it’s about investments, for example in “alternative investments” such as private equity or venture capital.
The professional soccer player invests in Ride Capital.
(Photo: IMAGO/Kessler sports photography)
Private equity includes takeovers and investments in established companies through special funds, venture capital is the collective term for risk capital for young companies. “Ride customers have recently been able to invest in Angel Invest’s closed-end venture capital fund, based in Berlin. The minimum investment is 200,000 euros, the target volume is 75 million euros,” says Managing Director Kiefer.
The fund has already made an investment. However, the start-up has not yet publicly announced this round of financing, so its name cannot be communicated. According to manager Kiefer, after the venture capital fund, Ride is planning other products, including in the areas of cryptocurrencies and real estate loans for asset-managing GmbHs.
The wealthy are demanding more digital communication channels
According to Ride, the number of transactions in the first half of 2022 was dominated by options with 55 percent, followed by stocks with 29 percent and futures with nine percent. Business volume, in turn, was led by equities. Among the top five customers from January to June 2022 were Facebook, Amazon, Tesla, Square and Daimler.
According to a study by Capgemini, almost half of wealthy clients want to split their assets among other asset managers in the coming months. According to Capgemini, customers criticize the lack of digital maturity of the offers, the lack of digital interfaces for portfolio analysis and not enough individual offers. The wealthy are demanding digital communication channels as well as offers and advice for niche products such as cryptocurrencies, hedge funds and private equity.
Global investment in finance start-ups hit record levels last year. This was the result of the “KPMG Pulse of Fintech”, for which data from Pitchbook was evaluated. Accordingly, the volume of all venture capital, M&A and private equity investments in fintechs rose to 210 billion dollars in 2021; that was 68 percent more than in 2020.
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