In recent years, the emergence of brokers and the reduction in the basic interest rate, the Selic, have led many Brazilians to leave the savings account for the first time, betting on applications such as Tesouro Direto, multimarket funds or even stocks. This trend has become even greater in recent months, with the Central Bank taking the Selic to its historic low, to the point that XP Investimentos and Itaú entered into a fraternal fight over the assets of clients. But this is a sector that is not being disputed only by banks and brokers: with the support of technology, many startups also promise to help the Brazilian to do his nest egg. One of them, Magnetis is announcing this Wednesday, the 29th, a new round of investments of R $ 60 million.
Founded in 2015 by Luciano Tavares, the company uses technology to provide its customers with the best possible investment portfolio. To do this, before putting any cent in your account at the startup, the potential investor must answer a questionnaire talking about his personality (is he conservative or bold?) And about his plans - if the idea is to save to retire or to buy a house . With the data in hand, the company is able to direct the best investments to the client, in different products, ranging from Treasury Direct and CDB to shares and multimarket funds, for example.
"With technology, we are able to offer anyone a type of management that is only available to those with very large assets, in the range of R $ 50 million", explains Tavares, in an exclusive interview with Estadão . Instead of a commission fee on earnings, the company charges users an administration fee on the amount invested - 0.6% per year. Until now, the company has always worked with partnerships with brokerages. After the investment round, led by the investment fund Redpoint eventures, it will also have its own brokerage. "Our idea is to control the customer experience from end to end," says the executive.
The company will also use the resources of the round to invest in technology and its expansion: today, the company has about 100 employees and takes care of R $ 430 million in assets, with about 6 thousand customers. The minimum required to open an account at Magnetis is R $ 1,000, although Tavares claims that he serves clients with assets of up to R $ 1 million. Driven by the resources of the contribution, Magnetis intends to reach the end of 2020 with 130 people on its team.
In 12 months, it wants to more than double the amount of assets under management, reaching R $ 1 billion. "Services like ours are quite adequate to the scenario of low interest rates and instability, in which it is necessary to have a very diversified portfolio. Doing this is complicated, but we can help", says the executive. "At the beginning of the crisis, around March, the stock market dropped by 40% in a few weeks. In the same period, our client with the most daring portfolio lost about 14%. A diversified portfolio helps in protection."
For Anderson Thees, partner at Redpoint eventures, one of the reasons that led to the investment in Magnetis is precisely the timing of the investment and investment scenario in the country. , he says. "On the other hand, the capital market is not trivial and for us it makes sense to have a professional in portfolio management, without staying in the Russian roulette to choose shares one by one."
Who also bet on the use of technology to make a more assertive portfolio management is the startup Warren, which raised a R $ 120 million round led by the QED fund, which has also made checks for unicorns like Nubank, Loft and QuintoAndar. Founded by former XP Marcelo Maisonnave and Tito Gusmão, the company has a similar operating system to that of Magnetis: the user answers a questionnaire with plans and personality and, from that, the company's investment robot draws up a portfolio for him , charging a commission of 0.5% per year on the invested equity. The applications can be in the market or also in financial products from Warren, which also has its own funds.
"The Selic interest rate is 2.25%. Before, you could be inefficient with your money, but now it doesn't work anymore", says Gusmão, who plans to use the investment to expand on three fronts. The first is hiring: the goal is to reach the end of 2020 with 350 employees; today there are 285 people. The recruitment focus will be on technology. According to the executive, today Warren has 140 thousand customers and R $ 2.5 billion in managed assets. By the end of the year, the goal is to reach R $ 5 billion.
To this end, the company also invests in partnerships with investment consultants, who use Warren's platform to help anyone who wants to apply. "Not everyone wants to be digital, sometimes you have to talk to a human," says the executive. Many of these consultants worked, before the pandemic, at Warren physical agencies, present in seven cities in the South and Southeast regions of the country. With the contribution, the goal is to reach 12 spaces. "These consultants have no conflict of interest: they charge, like us, a commission on the total investment, and are committed to betting on what is best for the person," he says.
The phrase makes sense in the midst of the fight between Itaú and XP - the bank accuses the broker of using the model of autonomous agents, not to act in the interest of customers. That's because the XP platform's autonomous agents receive commissions to indicate certain financial products, the so-called "rebate". Thus, it is easy to imagine that an agent will indicate a product for which he earns more, but which is not necessarily better for the investor. It is something that Warren and Magnetis say they are against. But the fight helps. "The conflict between the two companies helped us a lot, it drew attention to what we do," says Gusmão.
Not all investment startups, however, put themselves in this position. This is the case of Gorila Investimentos, created in 2016 by Guilherme Assis, one of the founders of the Iporanga fund (Loggi, Olist, QueroEducação). "We are a tool for controlling and consolidating investments, with financial education, helping investors to understand what each letter of a product means", says Assis. The company is divided into two fronts: it has an app for individuals, which is free, and a platform to assist self-employed agents to manage their clients' applications - the startup bills with the sale of the software license, depending on the amount invested and the number of clients of each agent.
Last year, the company raised an investment of R $ 35 million with Ribbit Capital, a Silicon Valley fund specialized in fintechs. The resources helped the company to reach the mark of 200 thousand customers of the free app and 100 customers of the investment platform - in total, R $ 30 billion are within Gorila, which does not work as a broker or manager. For Assisi, the discussion on conflict of interests will never end. "It is something inherent in any distribution activity. What we can do is to mitigate this conflict by increasing competition," he says. "It is reducing margins and improving the service, and we want to do both."
In recent years, the emergence of brokers and the reduction in the basic interest rate, the Selic, have led many Brazilians to leave the savings account for the first time, betting on applications such as Tesouro Direto, multimarket funds or even stocks. This trend has become even greater in recent months, with the Central Bank taking the Selic to its historic low, to the point that XP Investimentos and Itaú entered into a fraternal fight over the assets of clients. But this is a sector that is not being disputed only by banks and brokers: with the support of technology, many startups also promise to help the Brazilian to do his nest egg. One of them, Magnetis is announcing this Wednesday, the 29th, a new round of investments of R $ 60 million.
Founded in 2015 by Luciano Tavares, the company uses technology to provide its customers with the best possible investment portfolio. To do this, before putting any cent in your account at the startup, the potential investor must answer a questionnaire talking about his personality (is he conservative or bold?) And about his plans - if the idea is to save to retire or to buy a house . With the data in hand, the company is able to direct the best investments to the client, in different products, ranging from Treasury Direct and CDB to shares and multimarket funds, for example.
"With technology, we are able to offer anyone a type of management that is only available to those with very large assets, in the range of R $ 50 million", explains Tavares, in an exclusive interview with Estadão . Instead of a commission fee on earnings, the company charges users an administration fee on the amount invested - 0.6% per year. Until now, the company has always worked with partnerships with brokerages. After the investment round, led by the investment fund Redpoint eventures, it will also have its own brokerage. "Our idea is to control the customer experience from end to end," says the executive.
The company will also use the resources of the round to invest in technology and its expansion: today, the company has about 100 employees and takes care of R $ 430 million in assets, with about 6 thousand customers. The minimum required to open an account at Magnetis is R $ 1,000, although Tavares claims that he serves clients with assets of up to R $ 1 million. Driven by the resources of the contribution, Magnetis intends to reach the end of 2020 with 130 people on its team.
In 12 months, it wants to more than double the amount of assets under management, reaching R $ 1 billion. "Services like ours are quite adequate to the scenario of low interest rates and instability, in which it is necessary to have a very diversified portfolio. Doing this is complicated, but we can help", says the executive. "At the beginning of the crisis, around March, the stock market dropped by 40% in a few weeks. In the same period, our client with the most daring portfolio lost about 14%. A diversified portfolio helps in protection."
For Anderson Thees, partner at Redpoint eventures, one of the reasons that led to the investment in Magnetis is precisely the timing of the investment and investment scenario in the country. , he says. "On the other hand, the capital market is not trivial and for us it makes sense to have a professional in portfolio management, without staying in the Russian roulette to choose shares one by one."
Who also bet on the use of technology to make a more assertive portfolio management is the startup Warren, which raised a R $ 120 million round led by the QED fund, which has also made checks for unicorns like Nubank, Loft and QuintoAndar. Founded by former XP Marcelo Maisonnave and Tito Gusmão, the company has a similar operating system to that of Magnetis: the user answers a questionnaire with plans and personality and, from that, the company's investment robot draws up a portfolio for him , charging a commission of 0.5% per year on the invested equity. The applications can be in the market or also in financial products from Warren, which also has its own funds.
"The Selic interest rate is 2.25%. Before, you could be inefficient with your money, but now it doesn't work anymore", says Gusmão, who plans to use the investment to expand on three fronts. The first is hiring: the goal is to reach the end of 2020 with 350 employees; today there are 285 people. The recruitment focus will be on technology. According to the executive, today Warren has 140 thousand customers and R $ 2.5 billion in managed assets. By the end of the year, the goal is to reach R $ 5 billion.
To this end, the company also invests in partnerships with investment consultants, who use Warren's platform to help anyone who wants to apply. "Not everyone wants to be digital, sometimes you have to talk to a human," says the executive. Many of these consultants worked, before the pandemic, at Warren physical agencies, present in seven cities in the South and Southeast regions of the country. With the contribution, the goal is to reach 12 spaces. "These consultants have no conflict of interest: they charge, like us, a commission on the total investment, and are committed to betting on what is best for the person," he says.
The phrase makes sense in the midst of the fight between Itaú and XP - the bank accuses the broker of using the model of autonomous agents, not to act in the interest of customers. That's because the XP platform's autonomous agents receive commissions to indicate certain financial products, the so-called "rebate". Thus, it is easy to imagine that an agent will indicate a product for which he earns more, but which is not necessarily better for the investor. It is something that Warren and Magnetis say they are against. But the fight helps. "The conflict between the two companies helped us a lot, it drew attention to what we do," says Gusmão.
Not all investment startups, however, put themselves in this position. This is the case of Gorila Investimentos, created in 2016 by Guilherme Assis, one of the founders of the Iporanga fund (Loggi, Olist, QueroEducação). "We are a tool for controlling and consolidating investments, with financial education, helping investors to understand what each letter of a product means", says Assis. The company is divided into two fronts: it has an app for individuals, which is free, and a platform to assist self-employed agents to manage their clients' applications - the startup bills with the sale of the software license, depending on the amount invested and the number of clients of each agent.
Last year, the company raised an investment of R $ 35 million with Ribbit Capital, a Silicon Valley fund specialized in fintechs. The resources helped the company to reach the mark of 200 thousand customers of the free app and 100 customers of the investment platform - in total, R $ 30 billion are within Gorila, which does not work as a broker or manager. For Assisi, the discussion on conflict of interests will never end. "It is something inherent in any distribution activity. What we can do is to mitigate this conflict by increasing competition," he says. "It is reducing margins and improving the service, and we want to do both."