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After conducting hundreds of customer surveys Sharesies discovered that 75% of everyday New Zealanders didn’t know where to go to invest “investment firms need heaps of money to get started, and use language that we don’t understand. We want to make this generation the most financially literate. Starting with making investing easy — by breaking down the current barriers that stand in the way of investing today.”

Through the Kiwibank Fintech Accelerator the team are creating a solution for this common problem. Talking about the benefits of being in an accelerator such as Fintech, Sharesies Co-founder and CEO Brooke Anderson had a list of reasons!

• People – the other teams and the hosting staff are so much fun!
• Connections – I think this is one of the most successful accelerators because of its great partnerships with several corporates who are actively involved, such as Kiwibank, Xero, Mastercard, Callaghan Innovation, Microsoft… the list goes on.
• Structure – it’s great to have an office, wifi, coffee and a space to work. Along with a clear plan to be ready for demo day on the 19th May (not long now)!

Two of the Sharesie’s co-founders Leighton and Brooke, not only have a great deal of financial industry experience but both were YES students back at High School. “One of the biggest things I learnt from YES is that if you’re passionate you can make your idea happen and people will want to help” Brooke said.

Leighton launched an investment club when he was just 17, “it made investment seem possible and something we could do”. YES helped him realise that “no one really knows anything when starting a company. That’s like a new level of empowerment”.

The Sharesie beta launches this month – if you want to be one of the first to try Sharesies sign up here.