Swedish start-up Quartr gains high-profile backers to modernize investor relations

A new start-up is attempting to modernize the investor relations industry to meet the surge of new retail investors.

Swedish start-up Quartr recently raised $4.5 million to help build out its product, which includes recordings of earnings calls and financial documents from major companies. Investors in Quartr include executives at the Ritholtz Group — such as Barry Ritholtz, Michael Batnick and CNBC contributor Josh Brown — and former Spotify executive Peter Sterky.

The company, which has 23 employees, was founded in 2020 and launched its app earlier this year, CEO Sami Osman said. The company sees its customer base as both retail investors and the companies, who can use the app and how users interact with it to learn more about investor sentiment.

Osman said that the data uploaded for retail investors to use will be free but there will also be a premium service for companies to use.

“We want to bridge that gap where not everybody can buy terminals that can cost up to $30,000 a year, and we know there a lot of sophisticated retail investors who want to access this information,” Osman said.

The company’s app can be downloaded onto smartphones, and users do not need to create an account or enter personal information in order to use it.

Quartr has raised more than $6 million to date. Osman declined to give the total number of users but said the company had users from 160 countries, with the U.S. being the biggest market.