A new partnership between Best of Show winner Voleo and Convergence Concepts will enable the Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada-based social investing platform to enhance its technology and improve the user experience on its iOS, Android, and online applications.

“This partnership will allow Voleo to focus on its core – growth and scalability in both the B2C and B2B partnerships,” said Voleo CEO Thomas Beattie. “We are hearing the feedback from our customers and we are delivering. Later this year there will be more features and developments introduced into the platform, a direct result of customer interaction.”

A major goal of the partnership is to achieve a unified codebase across all three platforms – iOS, Android, and online. This will make it easier for Voleo to introduce new features, as well as improve its ability to test new marketing and user journeys. Voleo anticipates this will help the company scale its current B2C customer base and provide support for more “nimble, robust integrations” with financial services companies, credit unions, and banks on the B2B side.

“Convergence is thrilled to become Voleo’s partner for product engineering and design, and it is a privilege to work with such a professional and experienced management team,” Convergence CEO Matthew Housser said. “We believe that the Voleo platform has huge potential in both the B2C and B2B fintech spaces, and we’re excited to help evolve and scale Voleo’s core platform and unique user experiences.”

Founded in 2015, Voleo demonstrated its social investing platform at FinovateFall 2017, winning Best of Show for its app that leverages the collective wisdom of investors to pursue higher returns in the market. Earlier this year, the company successfully completed the 2019 FIS Fintech Accelerator program in July, along with fellow Finovate alums Neener Analytics, Gremln Social, and Digital Onboarding.

Voleo also participated in Google’s Digital Strategy program over the summer in a bid to increase user acquisition. This spring, Voleo won the 2019 Best Stock Trading App award in the investment category of the FinTech Breakthrough Awards. In March, the company teamed up with Nasdaq to launch their second Student Equity Trading Competition.

Publicly traded on the TSX Venture Exchange under the ticker TRAD, Voleo has a market capitalization of $9 million.

Canada’s Voleo is teaming up with the Nasdaq once again to promote financial literacy and awareness among college-age students. The Best of Show winning social investment platform and the Nasdaq have announced this year’s Student Equity Trading Competition – with cash prizes and the opportunity to attend a Nasdaq market opening for the winners.

“We are thrilled to team up with Nasdaq to provide students with an opportunity to invest in their futures,” Voleo CEO Thomas Beattie said. “We understand that there’s a steep learning curve to understanding financial markets, and our organizations are both strong believers in building financial literacy.”

The competition empowers teams of three or more to form or join an investment club on the Voleo platform. Once onboard, teams use Voleo’s Simutrader solution to manage simulated portfolios of $1 million, and can access Nasdaq Basic Data in order to guide their trading and investing decisions. The contest ends in April 2019.

Above: Members of the winning team from the 2017-2018 competition, the New Haven Bulldogs, at the Nasdaq with members of Voleo.

In the first year of the collaboration between Voleo and Nasdaq, more than 300 teams were formed. The team that came in first place, the New Haven Bulldogs from Yale University (pictured above at the Nasdaq with members of Voleo), gained 37.8% – more than doubling the gains of the second and third place finishers (the Baruch College Bearcats and the Colorado College Tigers, which finished with respectable gains of 16.3% and 15.3%, each). The top individual finisher produced a gain of 17.2% during last year’s competition.

“At Nasdaq, our mission includes encouraging greater market participation through education and access to market data,” said Nasdaq Director of Global Information Michael Taylor. “We believe that Voleo’s SimuTrader platform, combined with Nasdaq data, will provide students with a real investing experience that is innovative and social.”

Voleo’s technology – available on both iOS and Android – provides investors with a collaborative platform that supports social trading and investing by making it easy to join and manage investment clubs. Recently featured in the Financial Post, the Vancouver, British Columbia-based company demonstrated its technology at FinovateFall 2017, winning Best of Show.

In December, Voleo announced that it would partner with OP Financial Group to help launch a new social trading platform for the European market. The company began the year with news that B2B digital marketing executive Nicky Stenyard was joining its board of directors. Read our February feature on Voleo, including a Q&A with CEO Beattie.