If you’re looking to invest online, you’ve got the choice of everything from “fantasy portfolios” to social networks. But what amateur investors really need, says San Francisco company Vestopia, is to look over the shoulders of the professionals.
Like famed Watergate journalists Woodward and Bernstein, Vestopia hopes to make a name for itself by following the money. In this case, the money belongs to professional money managers – Vestopia has struck deals with a handful of who it calls the best investors with the business. Now users can watch every move those managers make with their portfolios, and do so with more transparency and detail than offered by competing sites.
The company’s Web site offers an easy way to follow each investors’ trades and also to see for yourself which managers are successful. In fact, you can receive e-mail or SMS notification 15 seconds after each trade.
Vestopia is only the latest in a long line of companies claiming to offer new web-based models for investing. Marketocracy, for example, tracks the the records of mutual fund managers and allows you to invest with the top performers (see our coverage), but you have to leave it with them and not do the investing yourself.
An array of investment social networks has emerged recently, including Cake Financial, which allows you to follow the stock portfolios of other investors (see our coverage). However, Cake lets those investors remain anonymous and doesn’t show you key details, such as exactly how much money they’re investing in each trade.
Vestopia offers information about fewer investors, but says its information is more credible, because it tracks real individuals and can show you exactly how they’ve done over time.
You can judge for yourself by reading their profiles here. The three most successful investors, according to Vestopia’s statistics, are Dan Knight of DK Investments, independent trader Larry Gendler and Mike Goodson of JP Morgan. (See Gendler’s profile above.)
Vestopia offers other ways you can interact with the “investment managers”, such as blogs, videos and live chats. But since there’s no shortage of investment advice on the Web, the portfolio tracking is the heart of Vestopia’s approach.
In addition to launching its service, Vestopia also recently announced that Steve Markowitz, co-founder of shopping rewards site MyPoints.com, is its new CEO. The company says it raised “millions of dollars” — it won’t disclose exactly how much — in January from Lightspeed Venture Partners, Gemini Israel Funds and Ofer Hi-Tech.
