In July 2022, while tech markets were absorbing a brutal correction, London fintech Shares closed a $40 million Series B. The round was led by Valar Ventures, Peter Thiel's fund, already an investor in Wise and N26. Two months after its public launch, the app claims 150,000 active users and brings its total funding to $90 million. The bet: turning trading into a social experience, more Discord than Bloomberg. For European B2C scale-up founders, this deal illustrates a precise thesis: as Robinhood loses steam, the next neobroker wave will be won on community, not on zero commission.
Key takeaways
- Shares raised $40M in a Series B led by Valar Ventures, Peter Thiel's fund.
- The app reaches 150,000 users within two months of launch (TechCrunch, 2022).
- Two of the three co-founders are French: Ben Chemlas (CEO) and François Ruty (CTO).
- Expansion planned in five European capitals, plus a crypto launch.
- The deal validates the "social-first" neobroker thesis against the Robinhood model.
The Shares deal in brief: $40M and Valar Ventures at the helm
The $40 million funding round announced on 25 July 2022 is led by Valar Ventures, whose fintech portfolio includes Wise, N26 and Xero (Valar Ventures). This closing brings Shares' total funding to $90M in under 18 months, a rare pace for an app still in its user-acquisition phase.
Key figures for the round:
Who is Shares and why does the product stand out?
Shares positions itself as a "social-first" neobroker: 73% of millennial users say they want to discuss their investments with peers before buying (CFA Institute, 2022). The app natively integrates chat, collaborative watchlists and public trades, where Robinhood or Trade Republic remain solitary.
Three co-founders, two French passports
Ben Chemlas (CEO) and François Ruty (CTO) are French. The third, Harjas Singh (CPO), comes from product at Revolut. The trio chose London for the depth of the UK retail market and access to FCA regulation, which is faster than the AMF on new formats.
The product: a Discord for trading
The app combines several building blocks missing from traditional neobrokers:
- Group chats by ticker or by watchlist
- Visibility into other users' public trades
- Shared price alerts
- Analyst views built into the social feed
- Co-editable themed watchlists
The real differentiation isn't technical. It's a behavioral bet: turning investing, traditionally a private act, into a documented group activity. It's exactly the mechanic that made Strava explode in running.
Why are Valar Ventures (and Peter Thiel) betting on Shares?
Valar Ventures has primarily invested in European fintech since 2010, with a track record that includes Wise (2021 IPO, $11B valuation) and N26 ($9B valuation in 2021). The fund systematically seeks out financial products redesigned for a new generation of users (Valar Ventures).
The thesis: community as a moat
Traditional neobrokers competed on zero commissions. That war is over: Robinhood, Trade Republic, and eToro all charge near-zero fees. The only remaining differentiation lever is engagement, and engagement comes from community. To structure this type of strategy, data analysis on retention becomes a key asset.
Contrarian timing
The investment lands in the middle of a tech correction: the Nasdaq lost 28% in the first half of 2022 (Bloomberg, 2022). Raising $40M for a retail product at that moment signals strong long-term conviction, not an opportunistic bet.
European expansion: five capitals, five teams
Shares plans to open local offices in five cities: Barcelona, Berlin, Stockholm, Krakow and Amsterdam. Each city will have a dedicated Country Manager, a sharp contrast with the usual centralized approach (Revolut ran Europe from London for years before decentralizing after 2020).
Why five cities instead of a gradual expansion?
The European retail trading market doubled between 2019 and 2021, growing from 30 to 60 million active accounts (ESMA, 2022). A sequential rollout would leave the field open to Trade Republic (already 4M users in DACH) and BUX. Shares is betting on a simultaneous launch.
The logic behind the locations
- Berlin: DACH market, direct competition with Trade Republic
- Barcelona: Southern hub, access to Spain/Italy
- Stockholm: Nordics, a mature retail market
- Amsterdam: Benelux, a flexible regulatory base post-Brexit
- Krakow: Central Europe and a low-cost tech hub
The crypto bet: why now?
Shares plans to integrate crypto trading into its 2022-2023 roadmap. The European retail crypto market counted 16 % of adult users in mid-2022, up from 8 % in 2021 (Statista, 2022). For a social neobroker, crypto ticks two boxes: strong native community and engagement rates above those of stocks.
Regulatory risk
MiCA, the European regulation on crypto-assets, was voted through in June 2022 and will come into force in 2024. Shares is banking on this timeline to structure its crypto offering within a clear framework, where Coinbase and Binance still face country-by-country uncertainty.
What this deal says about the neobroker market in 2022
The Shares raise crystallizes a shift: 64 % of tech funds invested in retail fintech in H1 2022 targeted "community-led" products rather than purely transactional ones (CB Insights, 2022). Robinhood, which lost 50 % of its value in a year, is paying precisely for the lack of a native social layer.
Three lessons for scale-up founders
- The moat is built on usage, not pricing. Once everyone is free, only retention matters.
- Simultaneous multi-city expansion becomes viable again thanks to async tools (Notion, Linear, Slack) that didn't exist in 2015.
- Contrarian timing pays off in B2C: raising in a bear market forces product discipline and gives you an 18-month head start on the recovery.
FAQ: key takeaways from the Shares deal
How much did Shares raise in its Series B?
Shares raised $40 million in Series B funding on July 25, 2022. The round was led by Valar Ventures, Peter Thiel's fund. This brings Shares' total funding to $90 million since its founding (TechCrunch, 2022).
Who are the founders of Shares?
Shares was co-founded by three entrepreneurs: Ben Chemlas (CEO, French), François Ruty (CTO, French) and Harjas Singh (CPO, ex-Revolut). The company is headquartered in London, but the founding team is mostly French, which makes it a hybrid case for the Franco-British ecosystem.
Why did Valar Ventures invest in Shares?
Valar Ventures looks for fintechs that reinvent an existing use case for a new generation. The fund has already invested in Wise and N26. Shares fits this thesis by turning trading into a social experience, where Robinhood and eToro hit a ceiling on engagement (Valar Ventures).
In which countries does Shares plan to expand?
Shares plans to open local teams in five European capitals: Berlin, Barcelona, Stockholm, Amsterdam and Krakow. Each city will have a dedicated Country Manager. This multi-local approach contrasts with the centralized model initially adopted by Revolut or Trade Republic.
Does Shares offer crypto trading?
At the time of the July 2022 raise, Shares was limited to stocks. Crypto was on the post-Series B roadmap, with a rollout planned during 2023, building on the MiCA regulatory framework passed by the European Parliament in June 2022.
Conclusion: a signal for European B2C founders
Shares' Series B is not just another line in the 2022 fintech funding table. It validates three structural shifts: the end of the pure-play transactional neobroker, the return of simultaneous multi-city strategies, and the bet on the social layer as the primary moat in B2C.
For founders and CMOs at French scale-ups, the Shares case offers a useful benchmark: two French founders in London, $90M raised in 18 months, and a clear product thesis. The next step will be to see whether the European expansion delivers on its growth promise, or whether the neobroker war absorbs Shares before it reaches critical mass.
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