OREANDA-NEWS. January 13, 2016. invst (www.invst.co.uk) which is launched today to provide investors for the first time with direct, free, and transparent access to all IPOs and secondary placings undertaken by selected UK corporate brokers.

It's time to put private investors back to where they belong, at the heart of public SME capital raising. With increased costs, regulation and bureaucracy, the man on the street has become increasingly isolated from the UK public capital markets since the golden era of "Sid" in the 80s.

Conversely, major institutional investors have voluntarily withdrawn from funding the majority of small to medium size public companies, as turmoil in the markets has led to an increasing institutional "flight to size".  invst aims to address this 'Perfect Storm" through the creation of a simple, easy to use, investment tool, which provides zero cost access to the entirety of such fund-raisings undertaken by selected UK SME corporate brokers. 

invst will enable investors to participate in all fundraisings undertaken by adopting corporate brokers registered with the platform. To conform with current regulatory practice and to provide a pooled structure for investors, invst is designed to offer a portfolio approach to investors. In practice, once an investor puts his funds into the investing 'pot' of a specific corporate broker, the corporate broker will draw down on a specific percentage of this pool every time it undertakes a fundraising.

Immediately following closure of each fund-raise, every individual investor will receive the shares subscribed for, in his/her own private broking account at the same time as every other participant, at the same price, and with zero costs/commission. 

In order to stay true to the Platform's values (Independence, Neutrality, Visibility, Straightforwardness, and Transparency), invst makes sure the investors get as much exposure as possible to as many investment opportunities as possible whilst ensuring that all investors are treated equally, no matter how much an investor invests in the pool, ?1000 or ?100,000. The only difference will be on the pro rata allocation not the terms of the investment.

One of the main highlights of the platform is that it is completely neutral and independent. Where competing platforms still depend on the private broker to bring the opportunity to the client, with invst all investors get access to the opportunity. Many investment platforms are trying to do this, but whilst those platforms promise to be disruptive, the only real innovation is in the delivery method, be it online or on a mobile.

In order to operate the platform and provide the regulatory framework, invst has signed an exclusive agreement with First Equity Limited, a City private stockbroker which was established in 1986.

Once an investor registers with the platform, they become a client of First Equity Limited and can start depositing funds into their account.  However, as the philosophy of invst is to empower the investor as much as possible, whilst remaining independent, investors will have the choice of where to hold their investment portfolio, whether it is with First Equity Limited or another stockbroker of their choice, the investment opportunities, and terms are the same.

invst is delighted to announce that leading City Corporate broker, Peterhouse Corporate Finance Limited ("Peterhouse"), has today become the first broker to adopt our revolutionary new platform.

Commenting, Eran Zucker, invest.co.uk Director of Operations said: "We are delighted to be launching invest.co.uk today and we are pleased to welcome Peterhouse Corporate Finance as our first adopting broker.  We strongly believe that this new way of investing gives investors the power they deserve.  By teaming up with First Equity Limited, investors can be reassured that their funds lie with a FCA regulated and established City Stockbroker."