Converting millions to impact investment is a big ask for finance app Yova in Switzerland, but now it is moving into Germany, a highly competitive market for robo advisors, rebranded as Inyova.
Swiss impact-investing app Yova has used the opening of a branch in Berlin as an opportunity to change its name to Inyova, the company said Tuesday.
Inyova stands for «Invest in your values». This is how the startup which has operated in Switzerland since 2019 intends to tackle its European expansion, of which the move into Germany marks the first step.
Inyova obtained the money for its entrance onto the international stage at its last funding round in May. Some of that would be put into marketing the German business, CEO Tillmann Lang told finews.ch.
Very Attractive on Paper
Germany is a potentially enormous market. The German central bank, the Bundesbank, says Germans have over 2.3 trillion euros ($2.7 trillion) in savings accounts which at best earn zero interest.
However, there is not culture of investing in equities in Germany, with only 7 percent of Germans, the lowest proportion in Europe, investing in the stock exchange compared with 23 percent in the U.K.
In addition there are a good 20 robo-advisors, digital platforms which offer a low entry threshold for new clients, competing in the relatively small German market.
Partners
«Of course, we’ve seen the failures of various robo-advisors in Germany,» Lang said, adding that Inyova was distinct from these platforms which were mostly offering standard ETF investments. «We’re offering an investment word oriented towards sustainability and impact and also stand out through our high degree of transparency.»
Inyova won’t have to enter the German market on its own, it will have startup WINWIN as a partner. WINWIN has been established as a platform for sustainable investment for years. Lang said there was a waiting list of several hundred German clients.
Inyova-Management: Tillmann Lang, Cristian von Angerer, Angela Altvater, Erik Gloerfeld
Strong Growth in Switzerland
In Switzerland the app has achieved a sixfold increase in the last 12 months. Over 5,000 clients have invested hundreds of millions, the company said, just under a three quarters of them first-time investors.
