Investor Interest in Crypto-Focused Stocks and Funds Grows Despite Selloff, Says Tifin CEO
A Wall Street subway station near the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York on Monday, Jan. 3, 2022.
Michael Nagle | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Search interest in equity funds remains strong despite the recent market sell-off, even in sectors of the market that have cooled significantly, according to trends Tifin finds.
Tifin is a financial information platform founded by Vinay Nair, a fintech investor and entrepreneur. One of Tifin’s offerings is Magnifi, a search engine product for financial advisors and individual investors to more easily find and compare equity funds.
Nair told CNBC’s “Squawk Box” on Tuesday that despite the recent stock selloff, search activity continues to grow on Magnifi.
“People are researching more things. We’ve seen an increase in consumers and advisors researching and asking more questions,” Nair said.
Recent research appears to focus on three topics, Nair said: funds exposed to crypto, climate and ESG-focused funds, and high-yield funds.
The crypto market has been particularly hard hit by the recent drop in risky assets, and there are no pure-play bitcoin ETFs on the market in the United States. However, Nair said investors seem interested in how fund managers who were previously bullish on crypto have responded to the selloff.
“It seems from research that there is interest in funds and fund managers who hold large crypto-related holdings, Coinbase being an example. And in particular, there is research that asks if fund managers increase Coinbase holdings, or increase crypto holdings,” Nair said.
The data could be seen as evidence of investors’ resilience in the face of a sharp sell-off that sent the Nasdaq 28% off its all-time high.
Tifin, which was founded in 2018, announced last week that it had raised $109 million in a Series D funding round despite the challenging funding environment given the Nasdaq bear market. The company counts Franklin Templeton, JP Morgan and Hamilton Lane as investors. Series D valued the company at over $800 million.
Even though search interest continued to strengthen, follow-up purchases grew more slowly, Nair said. However, investors and advisors can use Magnifi for window shopping while transacting on a different platform.