Netherlands-based stock trading app Bux secured €6m ($6.7m) yesterday in a round led by Holtzbrinck Ventures, the venture capital offshoot of German publisher Holtzbrinck.
Holtzbrinck Ventures was joined in the round by existing investors Orange Growth Capital and Velocity Capital.
Bux’s platform uses lay language and gamification to demystify securities trading. The company is already active in the Netherlands, UK, Germany and Austria, and plans to use the some of the funding to increase its marketing efforts as it prepares to expand into other European countries.
Bux also intends to grow its team and develop new features for the app, including a social network to encourage novice traders and advanced features for those with more experience.
Venture capital fund Initial Capital led a $1.9m round in September 2015 that also featured Silicon Valley Bank. Orange Growth Capital provided an undisclosed amount of seed capital in 2014, while 5Square is also a named shareholder in the company.