
Since its launch, Motif Investing has championed creating low-cost, high-value portfolio creation tools for individual investors.
Founder and CEO of Motif, Hardeep Walia joined me on the Tradestreaming Podcast early in the company's maturation cycle to talk about how Motif fits into the historical narrative of opening up investing tools and tech to individual investors:
So, what we do is we create indexes around these ideas and we focus on making investing very intuitive. It is as simple as, “I see something, an idea that I want. I want to put money to work and I don’t necessarily want to spend tons of time messing around with research in stocks, because I believe the index will do its job.” Then, we have very sophisticated investors who say, “You know what, just give me a starting point for a portfolio of stocks that actually act on these ideas,” and that’s what Motif is.Motif announced today that it would take another step to opening up a traditionally opaque part of the investing world: IPOs. As part of a partnership with JP Morgan, the online broker is offering everyone access to IPO shares with as little as a $250 investment.
The new partnership “will broaden access to IPOs to more individual investors,” said Michael Millman, Co-Head of Americas Equity Capital Markets and Head of Technology Investment Banking at J.P. Morgan, in a statement. “Motif’s innovative and easy to use platform is a cutting-edge, differentiated way for issuers to reach investors.” J.P. Morgan will be encouraging its IPO companies to participate in the Motif program. SourceMotif appears serious in bringing its style of investing to the IPO market and it looks like JP Morgan may be the first of bulge bracket firms that bring offerings to the startup online broker.