Ilumony founders launch NZ cryptocurrency investment platform

New Zealand-based financial services company Ilumony is launching a cryptocurrency portfolio investment platform designed to make the exciting asset class accessible to everyone.

The new platform, called Invsta, is in pre-beta testing and will be live to the general public later this year.

Ilumony is one of the startups participating in the Kiwibank Fintech Accelerator. 

Alternative cryptocurrencies to Bitcoin ("altcoins"), such as Ethereum and Ripple, have been in the spotlight in recent months with huge gains made late last year.

This has spurred investor interest but high barriers of entry into crypto-investing — such as fraud risks, complicated exchange processes, and unsettling volatility—  has made the asset class untouchable for many.

Invsta has been developed to make crypto-investing accessible to everyone.

The cloud-based investment platform offers a range of crypto-traded portfolios (CTPs) to help the wider public easily and confidently invest into a diverse range of cryptocurrencies and strategies.

Founders Rachel Strevens and Abhy Singla say the progression from traditional investment assets to include cryptocurrencies was a natural step.

"We were getting a lot of interest and questions coming through from our traditional investment customers about cryptocurrencies, wanting to know if we could help them invest in them," Strevens says.

"Globally, we discovered there's huge interest in cryptocurrency investment, but the majority of people just don't know how to buy into the market, who to listen to, and what to trust.

"Although there's been a lot of hype and speculation around cryptocurrencies recently, we see this as an emerging asset class that will mature and become more important in coming years," Strevens says.

The underlying technology behind them all — blockchain — could be as revolutionary as the internet.

"We want to give our customers the opportunity and appropriate guidance to invest in tomorrow's money, today.

CTO Singla has many years' experience investing and trading in cryptocurrencies and understands the pain points people are facing.

"We took our cryptocurrency experience, applied traditional investment market principles and expertise to help reduce the risk, and combined this with machine learning algorithms to provide a really simple, yet diversified approach to cryptocurrency investing," he says.

Through the Invsta platform, customers can easily set up an account and access a range of cryptocurrency portfolios and strategies, including two high-frequency-trading (HFT) algorithm-based portfolios, with more in the pipeline.  

"HFTs trade throughout the day across multiple different cryptocurrencies, based on a large number or pre-defined parameters," Singla says.

"Basically, they allow people to trade crypto without them actually having to do the trading themselves. I'm very excited about our HFT algorithm portfolios and the level of sophistication that these can add to a cryptocurrency investment strategy.

"It's great to be able to make these kinds of heavy-duty tools available to the general public via our platform.

Invsta is currently in pre-beta testing with early users.

Interested people can join the waitlist at invsta.com for early access to the beta product release, expected within the coming months.