Sarna is a trading and investing platform that announced new seed investments totaling over $2.5 million from VC firms with deep expertise in fintech and financial services. The funding will help the firm bring its mobile investing app, currently in beta, to market in the United States this summer and in Europe at the end of 2023. And the company will also continue building its risk management engine for real-time customer buying power calculations that enable T+0 settlement.
Previously in stealth, Sarna raised across 2 rounds. Motivate Ventures led Sarna’s pre-seed while the seed funding was led by Simplex Ventures and included participation from both Wedbush Financial Services and Wedbush Ventures, and several angels with trading, clearing, and financial services backgrounds.
KEY QUOTES:
“We’re grateful for the investment as well as the vote of confidence in our vision for the future of digital brokerage. The importance of finding investors with an understanding and history of success with investments in financial technology and services cannot be overstated. We are looking forward to working closely with them to reset the technical standard for the industry.”
— Dominik Sarna, founder of Sarna
“Across their myriad of trading and investing solutions, we’ve seen the Sarna team’s thoughtful and visionary goals for the options, equities, and ETF markets. We’re proud to be leading their latest seed funding rounds and bringing to market a company that is helping to shape the future of finance.”
— Kate Kitto, head of Simplex Ventures, the VC arm of leading proprietary trading firm and market maker Simplex Trading
“Dominik and team are creating the first retail brokerage entirely built from the ground-up, ensuring proper risk management controls and an ‘always-on’ customer experience. It’s a true testament to the durability and resilience of the backend that their internal risk management systems are licensed to other broker-dealers and clearing firm partners. Motivate is proud to support such technical expertise and an aim to bridge the US and EU markets with a modern customer experience. While legacy brokerage technology will continue to face outages driven by accelerating market volume and volatility, Sarna is responsibly and reliably pushing towards a safer and more promising future of investing.”
— Lauren DeLuca, Founder and Managing Partner at Motivate Ventures
“Sarna’s team of industry veterans is building the next-generation retail brokerage platform for US and European investors. Rather than putting a modern skin on legacy infrastructure, Dominik and team are building the technical backend and internal risk management capabilities for today’s trading volumes and volatility with intraday buying power calculations and margin capabilities. Wedbush Ventures is proud to support Sarna’s mission to reset the technical standard for the digital brokerage industry.”
— Petra Griffith, Founder and Managing Director at Wedbush Ventures
