Blinkist founder joins the Finimize Board to help close the information gap between retail and institutional investors.

In a world where there are more investors than ever before, it’s become more important to give retail investors everything they need to level the playing field.

Over 1 million of those retail investors look to Finimize for our digestible daily investing insights, with tens of thousands now subscribed to Finimize Premium. So we’re delighted that Blinkist’s Niklas Jansen is now bringing his own expertise to the Finimize team, joining the company’s board — alongside existing investors Cherry Ventures, Passion Capital and a long list of high profile individual investors (see end of article).

Book-summarizing service Blinkist is one of the fastest-growing consumer subscription businesses in the world, with more than 18 million users and counting. We’re excited to delve into Niklas’ unique skill set in delivering high-quality, bitesize insights to a curious world, and using his expert insight to help everyday investors make smarter investment decisions.

Niklas Jansen, Founder @ Blinkist

“With Blinkist, we solve a problem a lot of people face. Everyone wants to read more, but nobody has time to discover and read as many books as they want. We decided to do something to fix that. Finimize has identified a very similar opportunity in the investing space: if you actively want to manage your investments but don’t have time to do hours of research, Finimize is the perfect solution. I’m excited to support Finimize in building the leading consumer subscription business in finance.”

Everyone can be an investor now

Ten million Americans started investing last year alone, in large part down to things like fractional and free-free investing, zeitgeist talking points, and pandemic-driven habits. Nowadays, one in four Americans are estimated to be invested in the stock market.

It’s a trend we’re seeing all over the world, too: global retail investors now account for almost a quarter of all trading activity on the stock market. Put simply, there’s never been more of a need for accessible information that will help retail investors make more informed decisions about their investments. That’s where Finimize comes in.

We’re plugging the information gap

This new audience is actively looking for information about investing: news, ideas, analysis, education — you name it. But quality, reliable investment information tends to be prohibitively expensive: a typical financial media subscription charges hundreds of dollars, while some data platforms can set you back thousands or even tens of thousands of dollars.

That means free platforms like Reddit, TikTok, and YouTube have stepped into the vacuum, attracting huge audiences with their investing content. These platforms are perfect for modern investor behaviors: inherently bite-sized and social. But you get what you (don’t) pay for: they can be full of misinformation, pseudo-experts, and a whole lot of noise.

Put simply, those investors who want high quality insights in a curated, digestible style are underserved right now. But at Finimize, we’re working hard to offer the perfect solution at a mass-market price point. And the more we can inform this new influx of investors, the wealthier our entire generation as a whole will become.

Finimize CEO, Max Rofagha

“There’s more interest than ever from the public to invest. Many of the investing apps have reduced barriers to entry for retail investors, but there’s a huge demand for high-quality investing information that’s accessible to the retail investor. At Finimize, we’re building an affordable investing insights solution for the modern investor: it’s bite-sized, community-driven, and produced by experts. We’re thrilled to empower today’s retail investors to make smarter investment decisions.”

Niklas Jansen initially joined Finimize as an investor alongside Transferwise founder, co-head European private equity KKR and Axel Springer board member and a long list of investors with domain expertise, including founder of Eventbrite, founding editor of Wired UK, former CEO of Sony Music International, and COO of Africa’s largest telco and early investor in Skype and Wix.