Korva is a scroll of the internet’s best ideas.
TikTok meets Robinhood for Gen Z
Users scrolled through posts about financial literacy and stock picks, and every trade made through the platform was visible to everyone. The feed mixed teaching content with the real investments of other people, along with trading competitions and leaderboards.
On top of that sat an investment advisory business. Someone browsing the leaderboard could find an investor with an amazing portfolio and automatically copy it through an SEC-registered investment advisory vehicle.
The company raised $4.5 million and still had to shut down. Its founder believes timing was the cause: starting a year earlier would have carried the company through the death valley, the stretch after finding product-market fit when a startup has to survive until it has enough traction to raise again.
How does copy trading work?
A platform links a follower's account to a chosen trader's account so that each trade the trader makes is mirrored in proportion in the follower's. Services such as eToro have offered this since around 2010. In the United States, managing other people's money generally brings registration requirements, which is why an advisory vehicle registered with the SEC matters. The follower's results track the trader's, minus fees and timing differences.
What is the startup death valley?
The term describes the stretch between an early funding round and the point where revenue covers costs. A company spends cash on salaries and product while income is still small, so its bank balance falls. Investors often wait for clear evidence of traction before the next round. Many startups that fail do so in this window, even when their product has a following.
Why did Robinhood change younger people's investing?
Robinhood launched in 2013 with zero-commission trades, which removed a cost that older brokers charged. It also built a simple phone app that lowered the barrier to opening an account. Brokerage account openings rose sharply during 2020 as many first-time investors joined during the pandemic. Other brokers then dropped their own commissions to compete.
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