Robinhood introduced the ‘freemium’ model into the investment app ecosystem, challenging incumbents such as E*TRADE, Fidelty, and TD Ameritrade. Now, fintech newcomer Atom Finance is bringing free professional research to investors, banking on a user-friendly experience and high-quality tools to lure users away from pricey, high-end terminal and software subscriptions.
Atom Finance is challenging Bloomberg — whose eponymous terminal continues to dominate trading floors — by trying to develop a simpler product offering the depth of information that an institutional product might offer, but without a price tag that would break the bank for retail investors.
"A lot of the tools and information we are offering are things that have historically not been available to a larger audience, both due to price point and also just due to the fact that you know something like the Bloomberg Terminal takes two to three months to learn how to use," Eric Shoykhet, Founder & CEO at Atom Finance told Cheddar in an interview Tuesday.
Since launching its web platform in June and the mobile app in December, Atom Finance has netted more than 100,000 signups, with “north of 60,000 downloads” for its mobile app. Shoykhet said the company is planning to balance its free offering, while also introducing a premium product to generate revenue.
"The game plan is, for our web product, we're going to have a more, kind of institutional-style offering that we'll start charging for probably later this year," Shoykhet said. "On the mobile app, we're really just focused on continuing to build a great product and just getting it out there."
Atom Finance has raised a $10.6 million Series A led by General Catalyst, bringing its total funding to $12.5 million.
Joe Cecela, Dream Exchange CEO, explains how they are aiming to form the first minority-controlled company to operate an exchange in U.S. history. Watch!
A Michigan judge is putting sponges in the hands of shoplifters and ordering them to wash cars in a Walmart parking lot when spring weather arrives. Genesee County Judge Jeffrey Clothier hopes the unusual form of community service discourages people from stealing from Walmart. The judge also wants to reward shoppers with free car washes. Clothier says he began ordering “Walmart wash” sentences this week for shoplifting at the store in Grand Blanc Township. He believes 75 to 100 people eventually will be ordered to wash cars this spring. Clothier says he will be washing cars alongside them when the time comes.
The State Department had been in talks with Elon Musk’s Tesla company to buy armored electric vehicles, but the plans have been put on hold by the Trump administration after reports emerged about a potential $400 million purchase. A State Department spokesperson said the electric car company owned by Musk was the only one that expressed interest back in May 2024. The deal with Tesla was only in its planning phases but it was forecast to be the largest contract of the year. It shows how some of his wealth has come and was still expected to come from taxpayers.
At 100 years old, the Goodyear Blimp is an ageless star in the sky. The 246-foot-long airship will be in the background of the Daytona 500 — flying roughly 1,500 feet above Daytona International Speedway, actually — to celebrate its greatest anniversary tour. Even though remote camera technologies are improving regularly and changing the landscape of aerial footage, the blimp continues to carve out a niche. At Daytona, with the usual 40-car field racing around a 2½-mile superspeedway, views from the blimp aptly provide the scope of the event.
You'll just have to wait for interest rates (and prices) to go down. Plus, this deal's a steel, the big carmaker wedding is off, and bribery is back, baby!
It’s a chicken-and-egg problem: Restaurants are struggling with record-high U.S. egg prices, but their omelets, scrambles and huevos rancheros may be part of the problem. Breakfast is booming at U.S. eateries. First Watch, a restaurant chain that serves breakfast, brunch and lunch, nearly quadrupled its locations over the past decade to 570. Fast-food chains like Starbucks and Wendy's added more egg-filled breakfast items. In normal times, egg producers could meet the demand. But a bird flu outbreak that has forced them to slaughter their flocks is making supplies scarcer and pushing up prices. Some restaurants like Waffle House have added a surcharge to offset their costs.
