Aghaz offers a multi-asset portfolio, including U.S. equities, gold and precious metals, and fixed-income investments in the form of sukuks, sharia-compliant bonds.
Today, Agha is exploring offering Aghaz to investors beyond the U.S., primarily through white-label opportunities.
“It’s been exciting to see groups in the U.K. and the Middle East approaching us about the opportunity,” he said. “These would be launched with our instruments but their regulatory approvals—that’s probably about six months out for us.”
Aghaz has received interest from RIAs and broker-dealers about becoming or creating a business-to-business platform as well, another opportunity Agha will be exploring..
Furthermore, Agha is planning to use Aghaz Invest to help Muslims—and other users—explore and pursue other ESG-oriented interests, and intends to add features and functionality before marketing the platform broadly.
“People want to invest and save according to their values, and yes, our values are Islamic and faith-based,” he said. “But they go beyond that. For me, I believe in equal rights, I believe in women’s rights, so I wanted to create those kinds of portfolios within this faith-based values space for individuals.”
Moving forward, that means that Aghaz will incorporate more “build-your-own” portfolio tools and customization opportunities for its users without deviating from its sharia-aligned roots, said Agha. “That’s just the value set with which I’m starting my company. ... I always want all of our products to be sharia-compliant, but I also think that within this framework one should be able to create a totally bespoke portfolio in accordance with their unique, individual values.”