A popular stock picking game has launched a platform for users to buy real stocks
Invstr, a London-based company, on Monday announced a partnership with DriveWealth, a broker-dealer, on a new stock trading platform on Invstr with which users can buy full and fractional shares of US-listed securities.
Kerim Derhalli, a former managing director at Deutsche Bank, founded Invstr to provide ordinary investors with a fun way to try their hand at the market without risking their actual money.
Before he found Invstr, Derhalli worked at a number of firms on Wall Street, earning $1 billion for his clients during his decades-long career. So he knows what it takes to be a successful investor, and that expertise underpins Invstr design.
Derhalli told Business Insider's Oscar Williams-Grut in February the point of the company is to "help people learn how to become great investors," Derhalli said. "Learning to become an investor is like learning to play a musical instrument or learning to play a sport. When you play a sport, you've got to get fit, you've got to practice your skills, and then you've got to out and perform in the real world.
Invstr has 280,000 downloads and is used in 185 countries, according to the company.
Invstr users can invest with hundreds of thousands of dollars in play money and learn about the markets through content on the app. Derhalli told Business Insider users have access to a personalized news feed catered to their interests.
Now folks have the "full package," according to Derhalli, and can apply what they learn from playing games and gleaning content to buying and selling stocks.
"We are taking investing to the ultimate level and telling people to 'buy whatever you want, how ever much you want, or as little as you want,'" Derhalli told Business Insider.
The idea is get people investing as early as possible to accrue returns for the future.