Social media changed everything from news consumption to shopping. Now, Dub<\/a> thinks it can do the same for investing through an influencer-driven marketplace where users can follow the trades of top investors with a few taps. Think of it as TikTok meets Wall Street.<\/p>\n Founded by 23-year-old Steven Wang \u2014 a Harvard drop-out who began investing in second grade with his parents\u2019 blessing \u2013 Dub is betting the future of investing isn\u2019t about picking stocks but picking people. The app allows users to follow the strategies of traders, hedge funds, and even those mimicking high-profile politicians. Instead of making individual trade decisions, Dub users can copy entire portfolios.<\/p>\n The concept has struck a chord. Dub has already surpassed 800,000 downloads and raised $17 million<\/a> in seed funding \u2013 with a new round seemingly in the works. Less clear is whether Dub can avoid the pitfalls of previous fintech startups.<\/p>\n Inspired by GameStop<\/strong><\/p>\n Retail investing has evolved dramatically over the past two decades. The days of $7 trading commissions and clunky brokerage interfaces were blown apart roughly a decade ago by mobile-first platforms like Robinhood that invited people to trade for free. At the same time, social media is reshaping how people, and particularly members of Gen Z, make financial decisions.<\/p>\n As a Harvard student during the pandemic \u2014 one who was trading from his dorm room \u201cbecause you couldn\u2019t really do anything at school\u201d \u2014 Wang came to believe these two trends, retail investing and influencer-driven decision-making, were on a collision course. Between the GameStop saga, Elon Musk\u2019s ability to \u201cmove the Dogecoin and Bitcoin markets with every tweet,\u201d and people\u2019s willingness to \u201creally follow ideas and individuals to a whole new level,\u201d Wang decided to drop out in 2021 and start building Dub.<\/p>\n Right now, the platform\u2019s average user is between 30 and 35, says Wang, though New York-based Dub is clearly finding its way in front of an even younger audience. In recent weeks, this editor\u2019s 15-year-old has asked more than once about \u201cinvesting like Nancy Pelosi\u201d after marinating in Dub ads on Instagram.<\/p>\n Pelosi isn\u2019t personally trading on Dub; it\u2019s just a trader on the platform mirroring her disclosed moves. Still, the idea has caught fire. \u201cNancy Pelosi is up 123% on Dub with real capital,\u201d says Wang, \u201cand we\u2019ve made our customers millions of dollars since that portfolio was launched on the platform.\u201d<\/p>\n Dub isn\u2019t free. Wang was determined to generate revenue from the outset, and Dub does that today through a $10-per-month subscription model. Wang says further that some \u201ctop\u201d portfolios on the platform charge management fees and Dub takes a 25% cut of those fees.<\/p>\n In the meantime, Dub has scaled in part through organic growth. \u201cCreators who are good traders on the app are incentivized to bring their audience,\u201d says Wang, whose parents immigrated from China and who grew up in Detroit. <\/p>\n Dub is also investing aggressively in advertising, leaning heavily into Meta ads in particular to acquire users, including on Instagram. \u201cWe\u2019ve been really lucky where I think the broader American population really believes there are other people out there that have an edge over them when it comes to the investing world,\u201d says Wang.<\/p>\n Fighting words<\/strong><\/p>\n The question now is whether Dub will follow a similar path as other fast-growing fintech startups, many of which have found themselves in the crosshairs of regulators. Robinhood disrupted finance by making trading free, but it also faced regulatory scrutiny ahead of its 2021 IPO, ultimately ditching a feature that showered users with digital confetti<\/a> every time they made a trade.<\/p>\n Dub says it\u2019s keen to avoid the same mistakes. The company spent more than two years working with FINRA and the SEC before launching, ensuring its model complied with financial regulations. \u201cWe didn\u2019t just navigate regulation at Dub \u2014 we embraced it,<\/strong>\u201d Wang says.\u00a0(Like Robinhood, Dub is a fully licensed broker-dealer.)<\/p>\n A big distinction, argues Wang, is that Dub is designed to educate users, not just encourage blind speculation. The platform displays risk scores, risk-adjusted returns, and portfolio stability metrics to help investors make informed decisions, he says.<\/p>\n He suggests it\u2019s safer for investors than Robinhood. Says Wang: \u201cI have a lot of respect for what [CEO] Vlad [Tenev] has done in making trading free. But at the end of the day, making it super easy to trade without expert guidance, without education, is really just gambling for the broader population.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n To underscore his point, Wang points to the decision of Robinhood \u2014 along with Coinbase and other exchanges \u2014 to make the meme coin TRUMP available for customers ahead of President Donald Trump\u2019s inauguration. While it initially surged in price, its price has plummeted since. Says Wang, \u201cI think fundamentally the incentives are just misaligned between these big platforms that are public companies now that need to make money\u201d and that \u201cgenerally\u201d their customers have \u201cprobably lost money.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n (Worth noting: in a separate, recent conversation<\/a> with Robinhood\u2019s Tenev about Dub, Tenev proposed to TechCrunch that copy trading could become of greater interest to regulators, and that Dub may not yet be under the \u201cmagnifying glass\u201d because of its comparatively smaller size.)<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/Screenshot-2025-02-02-at-9.45.13AM.png?w=680\")