Invstr Pioneers a New Investing Experience

“Being able to easily expand our app with these interactive features has been essential for us, as it allows us to continuously create a lively environment that mimics a real-world investing experience." Kerim Derhalli, Founder and CEO at Invstr

Meet Invstr

Invstr empowers people to take charge of their financial future. Their investing app provides individuals with the education and resources they need to invest smarter. “Our mission is to empower everyone in the world to learn how to invest and to take charge of their finances,” said Kerim Derhalli, Founder and CEO, at Invstr. “We believe that investing is one of the most important things you can do in your life.” 

With Invstr, users can invest in stocks, buy and sell crypto, and manage their finances all in one place. They also offer tools such as Fantasy Finance, an interactive league within their app that gives users the ability to manage an investment portfolio with virtual cash, access news and financial data, and win prizes in a risk-free environment. 

When it came time to decide how to power real-time data streaming, a key feature in their app, Invstr chose to build with PubNub. 

Streaming financial data in real time

Invstr turned to PubNub because they needed a reliable infrastructure that would allow them to stream financial data in real time for their Fantasy Finance league, a game which allows users to gain visibility into what’s happening in the market and compete against individuals to win prizes.  

For Invstr, having an infrastructure that is able to operate continuously and reliably to transmit financial data is crucial because it helps equip their users with the insight they need to make informed investment decisions. “We're streaming real-time data to all of our users at all times and that gives them better access to what's happening in the real world,” said Derhalli. 

Now that Invstr has this core functionality in place, individuals can stay in the know with live statistics, charts, and analysis—ultimately making it possible for users to analyze real-time financial data and discover new investing opportunities in the Invstr app. 

Fostering community engagement with chat 

Following their initial development, Invstr now uses PubNub to power real-time data streaming, along with direct messaging and group chats in their Fantasy Finance league, creating an exciting investing experience that encourages community engagement. 

While competing against each other in the Fantasy Finance league, players are able to view real-time leaderboards and user statistics, message each other privately, or start a group chat room to discuss the market—presenting a new and engaging way of learning how to invest without risking real money. “We have an entire social network for people because we think that one of the ways that people like to learn today is through shared experiences,” said Derhalli. 

“Being able to easily expand our app with these interactive features has been essential for us, as it allows us to continuously create a lively environment that mimics a real-world investing experience, said Derhalli. 

We want the Fantasy Finance game to be as realistic as possible. Having the streaming data corresponding to the real market is a core element of the league, and the ability for them to interact with each other and form groups has been powerful.” 

Easily scaling to support millions of users

In addition to operating reliably to power real-time data streaming and chat for their users, another thing Invstr doesn’t need to worry about is the scalability of their app as their user base continues to grow. With PubNub, they can build without concurrency limits to ensure that millions of users are able to actively engage while investing, without needing to maintain the infrastructure themselves. 

And knowing that they can count on PubNub to support them as they continue to evolve their app is important for Invstr’s engineering team. “It's been a real pleasure working with the PubNub team,” said Derhalli. The level of professionalism and responsiveness has been really high.” 

If you would like to learn how PubNub can help you build experiences that are as exciting and engaging as those in the real world, try our APIs for free.