coindesk.com
Stocktwits has raised $30 million in a Series B funding round, the social media platform for investors and traders said Thursday.
Alameda Research Ventures led the round with participation by Times Bridge. The funding will go toward a geographic expansion that will start in India, adding products and services and expanding the asset class coverage – including crypto.
“We’re excited to be aligned with two new partners. Alameda Research Ventures’ vast experience in crypto will truly be an advantage as our users continue to demand insight into the asset class,” said Stocktwits CEO Rishi Khanna in the press release.
Stocktwits has historically had a U.S. equities focus. On the crypto front, the company currently offers channel pages filled with collected social media discussions using specific hashtags. There are also quote pages for some cryptocurrencies with basic trading information.
In an interview with CoinDesk, Khanna said, “There’s a big opportunity for us to deliver more value to [the crypto community] in the form of better pricing feeds and data, better context and information about the coins and tokens and their products.”
Khanna noted that the community-centric model of Stocktwits is well suited to an area like non-fungible tokens (NFTs), which are “all about community.”
Founded in 2008, Stocktwits pioneered the use of the so-called “cashtag” (e.g. $AAPL when discussing Apple’s stock) and offers an online platform for discussing those cashtags. Stocktwits says the platform has more than 6 million users with over 1 million active monthly users. The company is preparing to bring its Portfolio Integration offering out of beta and says the product already has more than $1 billion in connected assets.
“We’re really pursuing our mission to be the global platform for individual investors and traders across all asset classes regardless of investing experience,” Khanna said. “That’s going to come in the form of giving them the verticalized experience from ideation and research all the way through to execution.”