London-based retail investment platform PrimaryBid is reportedly preparing to cut its UK consumer app as the fintech struggles with a dearth of stock market activity in the capital.
The London Stock Exchange Group-backed firm is set to stop taking orders directly from UK retail investors and divert its attention to overseas business in the US and Europe, The Telegraph reported.
The firm reportedly no longer sees the cost of going directly to customers as justified given that most of its UK orders now come via platforms like AJ Bell and Hargreaves Lansdown.
Under the plans, PrimaryBid is now reportedly looking to expand overseas with a large presence in France and the US.
“We regularly review the focus of our resource allocation,” a PrimaryBid spokesperson said. “The opportunity to deploy capital scaling our technology worldwide is unignorable.”
The news comes weeks after fellow stock trading platform Public.com, based in the US, revealed it would shutter its UK operations just eight months after launch in order to focus on business across the pond.
PrimaryBid was launched by tech entrepreneur Anand Sambasivan in 2016 with the aim of allowing retail investors to take part in IPOs and fundraising deals.
Sambasivan told City A.M. last May that he was “tired of all of the UK and City bashing that’s going on”, calling London “an incredible place to start a business, especially a fintech business”.
However, the capital’s stock market has been hit by heavy investor outflows, few big-ticket IPOs and a string of companies snubbing the London Stock Exchange for listings overseas.
Just 23 companies listed in London last year. This figure was down from 45 in 2022, which itself was a 62 per cent drop compared with a record 119 listings in 2021.
In 2022, PrimaryBid raised $190m from investors including Japan’s Softbank and the London Stock Exchange Group. It has a string of partnerships with firms including Lloyds Banking Group.
PrimaryBid’s latest accounts show it lost £28.9m in the year ending March 2023, with turnover dropping 60 per cent to £1.8m.