Our mission, your futureCreating successful investors
We started Lightyear to build the investment platform that everyone in Europe deserves. With a slick experience and fair fees, we’re making investing lightyears better.
It started with £9,278 of sneaky fees...
Mihkel and Martin first met as early employees at TransferWise (LDN:WISE), where they were part of the founding team, building out the product and engineering functions during the company's meteoric rise.
Both had been personally investing in stocks for years and during one of their rants about how terrible the platforms on the market were, they found a combined total of of £9,278 paid in hidden fees. Absurd really, when you think about it.
They sensed an immense opportunity to build a powerful, yet transparent and low-fee investing app for Europe. The pair thrashed out the details, and three coffees later Lightyear was born.
Why we built Lightyear
01
Everyone should benefit
We believe that everyone should benefit from the financial markets. Today, only 10% of people in Europe invest compared to 50% in the US. That’s not good enough for us. Wealth creation in Europe can’t be limited to just 10% of our people.
02
The financial sector is too big
Financial services make up a huge chunk of the world’s GDP. But there are too many layers, huge inefficiencies and a lot of customer risk. We see the future of finance as a place where simplicity and automation meet transparency, to unlock wealth for everyone.
03
Investing is hard
If investing was easy, more of us would be doing it. We know it’s hard, and there’s no point pretending otherwise. But we do believe that we can make it better. We’re here to solve all the hard problems so that you can focus on life’s main events.
Investors agreed with us
We have the support of top-tier institutional investors and business leaders that share our vision for the future of finance. It’s not an easy task to change the world of investing, but it’s a lot easier with the right people in our corner.
More about what we're building
“The Lightyear team are lifting the lid on the world of investing”.
Sir Richard Branson, Founder of the Virgin Group
“Lightyear is building a platform that customers not only love and trust, but one that understands the nuances between different regulations, languages, exchanges and cultural investing norms.”
Nicole Quinn, General Partner at Lightspeed Venture Partners
“With launching business accounts, Lightyear is eliminating huge pain points of long, bureaucratic onboarding as well as limited and expensive access to the global markets for a huge audience — deepening their impact on investing in Europe.”
Taavet Hinrikus, Co-Founder of Wise
And so did our customers
We’ve launched in 22 countries across Europe helping over 240,000 users invest. And we’ve also brought together 17 office dogs. Woof.
22
Countries240,000+
Users17
Office dogs
ISA Launch Event
London
Female Investor Event
Budapest
Estonian Investment Club
Tallinn
Product Roadmap Meet Up
LondonISA Launch Event
LondonFemale Investor Event
BudapestEstonian Investment Club
Tallinn