chicago-fintech
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Barchart Put Futures on the Web. Then Its Readers Asked to Borrow the Plumbing
A 1995 subscription site became a data supplier when customers asked to put its quotes on their own pages. Thirty years later, Barchart serves both the person checking a soybean chart and the grain elevator managing the hedge behind it.
NinjaTrader Built a Futures Machine. Kraken Paid $1.5 Billion for the Plumbing.
A free charting tool became a broker, a clearing stack and, eventually, the bridge Kraken wanted between crypto and regulated futures. The clever part was not the candlesticks. It was owning more of what happened after a trader clicked buy.
M1
M1 is a Chicago-based personal finance platform that bundles investing, borrowing, and spending into a single app it calls 'The Finance Super App.' Built around customizable 'Pies' that let people design a portfolio of stocks and ETFs and automate contributions and rebalancing, M1 aims to give self-directed investors the kind of automated, low-cost money management once reserved for the wealthy. Founded in 2016 by Brian Barnes, the company has raised more than $300 million and surpassed $10 billion in assets under management.