AlgoMerchant began its journey in 2015 with NTU’s innovation arm NTUitive

Singapore-based artificial intelligence startup AlgoMerchant today announced that it has raised more than US$2 million of investment from East Ventures and a network of “prominent individuals” in the fund management and broking industry.

The company also launched its fully automated robot trading platform for retailer investors in the Hong Kong, Singapore, and the US markets.

Claiming to be the first to offer such service at an affordable costs, AlgoMerchant’s robot trading platform has the goal to “redefine investing” through the use of data analytics and machine learning.

The robots will  automate trading on personal accounts with global brokerage firms such as Interactive Brokers and IG Markets, enabling users to experience a “seamless” trading process with reduced trade delays and human errors.

“Statistically, retail investors spend many hours performing research on stocks but are often unable to achieve positive returns. With the robots, retail investors can have an edge similar to resource-rich top quantitative hedge funds,” the company said in a press statement.

AlgoMerchant was founded by ex-bankers CEO Justin Tjoa and CTO Aditya Santoso. The startup began its journey in 2015 with Nanyang Technological University’s (NTU) innovation arm NTUitive.

To develop the platform, AlgoMerchant works with freelance quant traders and data scientists from various countries to discover profitable investment algorithms.

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During a nine-month long beta test period, it claimed to have worked with “over a thousand” traders who testified on the platform’s capability to generate projected annual return of greater than 40 per cent.

Following the launch of the robot trading platform, AlgoMerchant said it will continue to work with international quant traders to share their algorithms on the platform, as part of a “rigorous” in-house test for risk management and performance maximisation. It will also hold seminars inviting trading experts to share their ideas.

The startup has also started developing customised solutions to meet the demand of fund houses that are planning to shift to robot investing.

As for investor East Ventures, it recently launched a US$30 million fund dedicated for early stage startups in Southeast Asia, particularly Indonesia. It has presence in Indonesia, Japan, and Singapore.

Its most recent investment was an undisclosed funding round in adtech startup BetaOut.

It also backed coworking space chain EV Hive, which has just raised a US$3.5 million in funding led by Insignia Ventures.

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Image Credit: AlgoMerchant

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