By Bob Cortright, Founder & Executive Chairman, DriveWealth
In an industry that never stops evolving, we wanted to take a moment to reflect on the past 10 years – what a journey it’s been since we first opened our doors! Since 2012, we’ve remained committed to our ultimate mission – expanding access to affordable investing – and each growth stage that we’ve experienced at DriveWealth has enabled us to accomplish exactly this goal.
Our industry has seen some incredible change over the years, and we’ve worked hard to drive these developments. Our technology enables our partners to transform mobile devices into investment tools, but what matters most is how our technology is helping the retail investors behind those screens. In the past 10 years, we’ve been able to provide affordable access to U.S. markets for millions who were not able to before. At the end of the day, we want consumers to be confident in their ability to turn to investing to reach their financial goals. Breaking the stigma that the markets are intimidating or only for “experts” is the first step in building that confidence so that investing no longer seems to apply to just high net-worth individuals, but rather, anyone with a mobile phone.
On our journey to becoming the global fintech investment rail that millions of mobile wallet users depend on, we know we wouldn’t have been able to achieve what we have without the support of our partners, team members, and investors – and for that, we are extremely grateful. It’s through their support that we’ve achieved some pretty exciting milestones over the years, including:
- Reaching a $2.85 billion valuation, following our Series D led by investors like Insight Partners, Accel, and Point72 Ventures
- The acquisition of globally-respected NYSE broker-dealer Cuttone & Company to establish our institutional division, DriveWealth Institutional
- Unprecedented expansion, including a 100% growth in customers and revenue and 140% growth of our international business in 2021, leading to the development of our presences in Singapore, London, Dublin, Lithuania, and Brazil to support our partners and retail investors globally
- The launch of two wholly-owned crypto subsidiaries, DriveDigital and DriveLiquidity, to meet the needs of our partners’ and seamlessly connect their retail investors to the crypto marketplace
- The expansion of our leadership team with the recent appointments of executives from Visa, Google, and PayPal
- Recognition as one of the most innovative companies in fintech via our inclusion in the 2022 Forbes Fintech 50
By providing access to markets through mobile devices, we’ve been able to improve the lives of millions of investors around the world. But, you’re probably wondering – what’s next? We can’t tell you everything, but we’ve got a lot up our sleeves – stick around for the next 10 years and you’ll see!