Canadian startup Composer to launch automated trading platform

November 16, 2021

Toronto-based FinTech software startup Composer is to commence the open beta rollout of its automated trading platform, following a $5.35m in unannounced seed financing, BetaKit has revealed.

According to BetaKit, Composer is backed by a group of investors that includes San Francisco First Round Capital and Toronto Golden Ventures, and aims to bring institutional investment strategies to retail investors.

Composer reportedly said that after seeing some positive results from its private beta, it begun the rollout of its open beta on 15^th November. For live trading, Composer initial focus is on the US with plans to roll out the capacity in other regions over time.

Composer was founded in 2020 by Rollert CTO Ronny Li, and COO Ananda Aisola, alumni of Montr?al-based workspace startup Breather and Toronto-based social food ordering app Ritual, respectively.

The platform allows individual, non-professional investors to design and adopt sophisticated, hedge fund-like investment strategies. The startup platform permits users to create their own strategies using its no-code visual editor, or implement ready-made approaches. Composer software also enables them to backtest the performance of various strategies against historical data, and, once selected, automatically executes trades on behalf of investors.

The rollout of Composer offering comes amid a reported rise in retail investing. BetaKit suggested that the rise in investment groups on social media platforms, such as Reddit, could be driving this trend. Such platforms potentially make investing more accessible to the non-professional investors that Composer targets.

Moreover, these platforms are becoming increasingly more important in investment decisions, which could be indicative of the growing retail investing community.?FinTech Global recently reported on research by Finder that revealed that 38% of 18- to 34-year-olds are using social media for investing tips.

To start, Composer said it will focus its offering on ?edge-seekingretail investors who spend a lot of time reading investment newsletters and browsing Reddit forums, but the company intends to expand its reach to more self-directed, systematic retail investors in future.