Australian FinTech company profile #26 – Sharesight
- Company Name:
Sharesight
- Website
- Key Staff & Titles:
Andrew Bird — Executive Chairman
Tony Ryburn — Executive Director
Doug Morris — Chief Executive Officer
Scott Ryburn — Chief Technical Officer
Prashant Mohan — Chief Marketing Officer
- Location(s):
Sydney, Australia
Wellington, New Zealand
- In one sentence, what does your fintech do?:
Sharesight is an award-winning portfolio tracker used by DIY investors and finance professionals to easily track all their investments in one place. In short, we are the fitbit for investing.
- How / why did you start your fintech company?:
Sharesight was founded in 2007 by father and son Tony and Scott Ryburn. Tony had spent nearly 10 years as a keen, but highly frustrated, self-directed investor. Recordkeeping was a nightmare and working out the true performance of his portfolio, as well as his tax obligations, was nearly impossible. Tony and Scott looked for an online solution, and when they couldn’t find anything they liked, they founded Sharesight.
- What the best thing your company has achieved or learnt along the way (this can include awards, capital raising etc)?:
We’re proud to see the sheer number of trades tracked by Sharesight. For example, as at Dec 2018, investors and financial professionals around the world use Sharesight to track over 1 million individual holdings across 25 different global stock markets — for a total value of over $6.1B USD($8.5 AUD). And a new trade is added to Sharesight nearly every second — with over 30 million trades in a single year!
We were also very pleased to have raised NZD $2m from our own clients back in 2015. The amount clearly demonstrated how much investors love Sharesight, and we are very grateful as it has helped us grow to where we are today.
- What’s some advice you’d give to an aspiring start-up?:
“I think the most important thing is to find the people with the skills and experience that you lack and find a way to get them on board as early as you can. There’s no shortage of advice on offer if you seek it out, but always remember that what worked for someone else may not work for you. At the end of the day, you have to trust your instincts.” – Scott Ryburn, Sharesight co-founder and CTO
- What’s next for your company? And are you looking to expand overseas or stay focussed on Australia?:
Investors and financial professionals in over 60 countries already use Sharesight, and the majority of our monthly signups are now outside Australia and New Zealand. In 2015, we began actively supporting the Canadian market by incorporating region-specific tax features and supporting local brokers. The response has been very good, so we’ll likely replicate that model in other regions as well.
We also have open APIs that are being used by local fintechs and brokers to push data in/out of Sharesight. We look forward to working with more global partners to expand the Sharesight ecosystem and provide more access and choice to investors around the world.
- What other fintechs or companies do you admire?:
Being founded in Wellington, New Zealand, we’d probably have to say Xero. It’s incredible to see how much they’ve grown in a relatively short time!
- What’s the most interesting or funniest moment that’s happened in your company’s lifetime?:
Some of the alternate names considered for Sharesight were – Honest Bob and Pink Piggy!
