How Exo is using technology to democratise investment

"We want to take robo-advice to the next level. By democratising access to sophisticated investment management, we can empower people financially through technology." Lennart Asshoff, CEO, Exo Investing.

Lennart Asshoff, chief executive of Exo Investing, had spent six years working as a product manager for one of Europe's largest quantitative asset management firms, ETS, when he became inspired by the idea of using rapidly-evolving technology to improve the financial future of everyday investors. Asshoff was spending most of his time creating made-to-measure investment portfolios for institutional clients.

But he also wondered: "Why should these high-end tools and technologies be the preserve of the institutional and ultra high-net-worth clients?"

His vision of democratising investment, by giving private investors access to tools once restricted to institutions, moved closer to becoming a reality when chief technology officer, Antonio Mele, joined Exo just under two years ago. According to Mele, when it comes to investing, financial data is a mostly untapped opportunity, with financial institutions rarely brave enough to use cutting edge technologies to process it. Yet this is a huge missed opportunity never before has there been so much information available to create investor value, such as building personalised portfolios at scale.

As a result, Mele jumped at the opportunity to democratise and disrupt the financial services industry alongside Asshoff, using the power of machine- learning algorithms which have evolved over the past 30 years. The pair have an unwavering belief in each other's ability, and a shared approach to challenges: test; optimise; make changes. They work closely together to feed back results into Exo's development process, all with the end goal of creating a better service for private investors.

Mele has a long track record of building technological solutions for multinationals, such as Telefonica and Vodafone. He sees technology as Exo's key strength. "Financial institutions have traditionally been reluctant to embrace new technologies," he says. "They never got to exploit the capabilities of state-of-the-art tech. Fintech players are leading the disruption by using cutting-edge technologies."

Asshoff and Mele are fiercely proud of the opportunity Exo offers personal investors. In fact, they consider it to be a game-changing investment service. It enables investors to work towards their financial goals using tools and investment strategies that were previously only available to institutional and ultra high-net worth investors. Better yet, this is all delivered through an online platform, at an online price.

Compared to the growing army of robo-advice services, Exo offers far greater levels of personalisation and daily portfolio management, focussing on risk control. Fundamental to Asshoff's philosophy is the idea of Exo playing the role of investment co-pilot'. He sees Exo as "smoothing out the investment journey". Exo's technology, for example, moves money into safe haven' assets in times of market distress. The goal is for Exo to work in the background to maximise the potential of your investment decisions. Exo exists to help investors maintain control over their portfolio whilst also overcoming any irrational human biases.

This goal is backed up by years of research demonstrating that typically, when an investment or trade fails to perform (especially in a panicky environment, like a financial crisis), it's not uncommon to have feelings of shock, anger or panic. This can skew even the most experienced investors' logic, leading them to make bad decisions.

Exo, on the other hand, doesn't have biases and it's never influenced by a herd mentality. Its advanced systems provide coherent real-time investment management through tried-and-tested algorithms that factor in the current market conditions. For an Exo client, this is the equivalent of having your own investment manager analysing the markets 24/7 one who creates a dynamic investment portfolio based on your specific preferences, something that is constantly evolving and optimising, based on both your needs and the market context.

Exo uniquely merges technology, investing and risk control to make individualised investing accessible for all. In Asshoff's words, Exo aims to go "beyond robo" and to "accelerate the inevitable paradigm shift in financial services". He believes that Exo has the technological heft and service capability to make it "the most advanced online wealth management platform in Europe".

Visit exoinvesting.com to find out more.

When investing, your capital is at risk. The value of your investments can go down as well as up, so you could get back less than you invested. Exo Investing is a trading name of Finhub Technologies Ltd. which is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (Financial Services Register number: 748161).