Stake is an Australian financial services company headquartered in

Sydney, Australia Sydney ( ) is the capital city of the States and territories of Australia, state of New South Wales, and the most populous city in both Australia and List of cities in Oceania by population, Oceania. Located on Australia's east coast, the metro ...

. It was founded in 2017 by Matt Leibowitz and Dan Silver. Stake predominately offers low-cost

broker A broker is a person or firm who arranges transactions between a buyer and a seller for a commission when the deal is executed. A broker who also acts as a seller or as a buyer becomes a principal party to the deal. Neither role should be con ...

age services to retail investors in Australia, New Zealand, Brazil and the United Kingdom. As of February 2022, Stake had over 450,000 users, making it the third-largest online broker in Australia.

History

Stake was created in 2017 to enable Australians to trade shares on the

NYSE The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE, nicknamed "The Big Board") is an American stock exchange in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan in New York City. It is by far the world's largest stock exchange by market capitalization of its listed co ...

and

NASDAQ The Nasdaq Stock Market () (National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations Stock Market) is an American stock exchange based in New York City. It is the most active stock trading venue in the US by volume, and ranked second ...

, which at the time was a novelty in Australia. The company was created by Matt Leibowitz, a former partner in the

derivatives The derivative of a function is the rate of change of the function's output relative to its input value. Derivative may also refer to: In mathematics and economics *Brzozowski derivative in the theory of formal languages *Formal derivative, an ...

trading firm

Optiver Optiver is a proprietary trading firm and market maker for various exchange-listed financial instruments. Its name derives from the Dutch , or "option trader". The company is privately owned. Optiver trades listed derivatives, cash equities, e ...

, and Dan Silver. In 2019, Stake raised $AU 3.5 million from Ellemby Capital and its chairman, Brazilian entrepreneur and investor Sergio Kulikovsky. The company claimed to be trading profitably at this time. As a low-cost broker targeted towards retail investors, Stake played a pivotal role in the

GameStop short squeeze In January 2021, a short squeeze of the stock of the American video game retailer GameStop () and other securities took place, causing major financial consequences for certain hedge funds and large losses for short sellers. Approximately 140 ...

in Australia. Following coverage on the

GameStop GameStop Corp. is an American video game, consumer electronics, and gaming merchandise retailer. The company is headquartered in Grapevine, Texas (a suburb of Dallas), and is the largest video game retailer worldwide. , the company operates 4,5 ...

saga on media and social media, thousands of investors joined the Stake platform to participate in GameStock trading. On 28 January 2021, Stake reported tech outages as a result of a sudden increase in new users. On 1 February 2021, US

broker-dealer In financial services, a broker-dealer is a natural person, company or other organization that engages in the business of trading securities for its own account or on behalf of its customers. Broker-dealers are at the heart of the securities and ...

DriveWealth significantly raised its capital requirements for trading in the GameStop stock in an attempt to tame the wild fluctuations in price. Since DriveWealth is Stake's broker partner, Stake was forced to stop trading in Gamestop. In May 2021, Stake raised an additional $AU 40 million from

Tiger Global Management Tiger Global Management, LLC (often referred to as Tiger Global and formerly known as Tiger Technology) is an American investment firm. It mainly focuses on Internet, software, consumer, and financial technology industries. Background and histo ...

and

DST Global DST Global is a venture capital and private equity firm that primarily invests in late-stage internet companies. DST Global has been described as one of the largest and most influential venture firms in the world, with an estimated $50 billion ...

to expand into other markets. In November 2021, Stake was recognised as the 7th fastest growing company in Australia. In December 2021, Stake launched the ability for the Australian public to trade shares on the

ASX Australian Securities Exchange Ltd or ASX, is an Australian public company that operates Australia's primary securities exchange, the Australian Securities Exchange (sometimes referred to outside of Australia as, or confused within Australia a ...

and Chi-x. In April 2022, Stake announced that it had raised a further $AU 50 million from Tiger Global Management and DST Global to complete its Series A funding. At this time, Stake reported that it had $AU 2 billion in assets under management and was generating $AU 20 million in revenue per year.

References

{{Online brokerages Australian companies established in 2017 Online brokerages Financial services companies of Australia Financial services companies based in Sydney Online financial services companies of Australia Investment companies of Australia