SHU-grown FinTron Invest of Westport launches

After over two years of incubation and development, Westport-based financial technology company FinTron Invest has officially launched.

The company is newly licensed with the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority.

It is one of the youngest firms to secure status as a FINRA member broker-dealer; CEO Wilder Rumpf is 25, and all the founders are also 25 or under. Its goal is to make investing and personal financial education more accessible for younger generations, especially first-time investors.

The company was first incubated through Sacred Heart University, and settled close to those roots in Westport. It has 30 employees now and will provide future employment and internship opportunities to students and graduates.

“Connecticut has been instrumental to FinTron’s development ”“ providing us with so many great resources, including the Connecticut Micro-Enterprise Grant, tax credits to early investors and access to local events that helped us further establish the FinTron brand and product offering,” FinTron CEO Wilder Rumpf said. “As young professionals, these are major accomplishments and we want to do everything we can to give back to our home state.”

FinTron’s services are available through an app for IOS and soon to be available for Android devices. For $3 a month, users can trade directly in the app and are able to engage in fractional trading in over 600 stocks and ETFs. Budgeting and financial education tools and resources are also included.

The app also offers banking features, such as interest-bearing checking accounts, online check deposit and free ATM withdrawals worldwide.

The company is also the maker of FinTronU, a free simulated trading game site. On the site, users can select from over 2,000 stocks with $100,000 in simulated cash, to learn about investing without the risk.

FinTron announced that it will partner with Apex Clearing as its clearing and custody partner.

“Since our founding nearly a decade ago as one of the first all-digital custody and clearing firms, Apex has been trailblazing through the fintech space with today’s consumer in mind,” said Dustin Kirkland, chief product officer of Apex Clearing.

“We never stop enhancing our technology as we aim to level the playing field, and FinTron’s app launch featuring investing and fractional trading does just that, and in a scalable way to support their future growth.”

Read our 2019 interview with CEO Wilder Rumpf here.