The team at Financial Advisor & FintekNews are pleased to offer our readers our “3 Questions” column, where we chat with a thought leader within a unique sector of fintech and ask them to answer just 3 questions for our audience in their vernacular. This week, we’d like to introduce you to Scott Coyle of ClickIPO, a financial technology application that allows access to IPOs and secondary offerings using an existing brokerage account.

Name: Scott Coyle
Title: Co-Founder And CEO Of ClickIPO
Company: Clickipo
Web Address: https://clickipo.com/

1. What does your firm do/offer within the fintech sector? ClickIPO's technology-based platform is designed to democratize the IPO market, enabling everyday, individual investors to invest in the IPOs of companies whose products and services they use and value. By simply downloading the ClickIPO app and opening a brokerage account, investors can stay on top of upcoming offerings with the IPO calendar, access curated company profiles, and then participate in these exciting new public companies by investing at the IPO price.  

For years, individual retail investors have been trying to get access to the IPO market, with little to no success. The ClickIPO application now makes this possible, broadening retail investor access to IPO and secondary offerings while at the same time, providing significant benefits to the issuers, underwriters and brokerages.  

This past year, 2018, was really [had] a validation of the platform, having participated in over 30 new offerings. This is only the beginning. ClickIPO continues to build its partnership roster, adding both new underwriters and online brokerage partners in order to improve upon the deal flow, number of investors with IPO access, and overall customer experience. In time, we expect to be the go-to site for all investors to participate in the IPO market.

2. What areas of fintech do you believe will grow the most in the coming five years? Fintech companies are all about improving upon the customer experience in the consumption of financial products. At the same time, as consumers continue to engage in active lifestyles, they rely on their mobile device for everything from setting their alarm to managing life activities, including both their personal finances and their investment portfolio. Today the smartphone has become the consumer's most trusted device and the preferred platform for managing finances. This has spawned a new direct-to-investor model and will continue to allow new entrants, like ClickIPO, to offer investors access to new and improved product offerings. We expect many companies to offer and/or bolster a user friendly and secure mobile platform to access these products and services.
market.

3. How do you feel consumers are adapting to the segment of fintech that your company operates within?

Up until now, the common retail investor has had limited access to the IPO market. Typically these offerings are reserved for institutions and high-net-worth investors. The ClickIPO platform enables everyday, individual investors with the ability to be informed about new offerings and potentially invest alongside both institutions and high-net-worth investors. This comes at just the right time. So far in 2019, there have been a number of high profile new age (and old age) companies come to market including Lyft, Pinterest, Levi’s and Uber, to name a few. The IPO market, based on the Renaissance IPO Index, is up 28% year-to-date far surpassing the S&P 500 13% gain.

Based on the backlog of companies on file to go public with the Securities and Exchange Commission, this is a trend that should continue for the remainder of 2019 and beyond provided equity markets remain constructive.

Scott Coyle is the co-founder and CEO of Click IPO. Scott has 20+ years of experience in the securities industry, primarily in the capital markets area.