A social media site is helping start-up investment firms
compete with bigger competitors.
Hedgehogs.net will
provide social networking tools and business software to support
small firms and individuals in the investment sector.
The site aims to act as an information source for small firms
and independent advisers who lack the IT resources to link into
third-party information providers.
Hedgehog will offer a social platform made up of a news service,
blogs and a search engine which constantly feeds information.
Users can share knowledge and market information through the
website, allowing them to compete with bigger firms, said Ken
Yeadon, CEO at Hedgehogs.net and managing partner at Thematic
Partners, which founded the site.
"It is about the dialogue related to the investment process and
people checking on each other."
The next stage will see software suppliers make their
applications, which are used by investment firms, available on the
site. "This will provide the software tools needed to run an
investment firm."
He said between 40,000 and 90,000 individuals could benefit from
the service, and thousands of suppliers of software and data could
potentially become members, said Yeardon.
The finance sector is
looking at ways of harnessing social media.
Trading software maker Streambase, for example, is enabling
traders to link its complex event monitoring (CEP) software to
Twitter through an adaptor to help it
receive information from the microblogging website to help it
make decisions on buying and selling shares.