Austin O’Mara and Kobena Idun instantly hit it off when they happened to meet in the Curry Student Center during their first year at Northeastern University.
O’Mara and Idun, now in their fourth year majoring in business administration and computer science, became inseparable after discovering a shared passion for the intersection of finance and data science. Ta.
The two have frequently bounced ideas off each other over the years, gaining experience at co-ops such as Fidelity Investments and Morgan Stanley. In May 2023, O’Mara and Idun came together with the same idea: an easy-to-use financial investment app.
The idea took hold and quickly transformed from a resume builder to a vision for a profitable company. They named the app Fineas.Ai. This stands for Financial Enterprise Analysis Software.
O’Mara said the idea of making investment information accessible has been in the back of his mind since he learned to invest at the age of 14.
“I remember how hard it was to find information. It was almost impossible,” O’Mara said, adding that it was even more impossible to figure out what to do with the information he did manage to find.
Omala and Idun created Fineas.Ai to address this very problem and help those just getting started with investing. Although their target audience is first-time investors between the ages of 18 and 30, not the middle school age O’Mara was when he started, the two believe there is a gap in the investor information market that can be filled.
Their app has streamlined the process of gathering information about future investments. The app asks users to enter their assets, citing examples such as Microsoft and Apple. Once an asset is entered, the app generates details and analysis on five elements: price, news, technical, financial, and descriptive.
The software uses generative AI to combine multiple sources to create an easy-to-understand overview of the stocks and companies you’re interested in, then cites those sources to help you do further research on your own. The app also offers a chatbot that answers questions and provides solutions, helping users think about their next steps in investing.
“There’s a huge barrier to entry for people who don’t have a good understanding of financial information,” O’Mara said. “We want to find ways to extract that information and put it in front of them to help them make trades, or at least be better informed before making investment decisions. I did.”
O’Mara and Idun said the evolution from friends to co-founders was smooth, with both naturally taking on what excited them most about the project. Mr. Idun is the head of development, while Mr. O’Mara focuses on finance and marketing.
“I like meetings. I like to know what’s going on,” O’Mara said. However, Idun says, “It’s the opposite.”
“He’s the kind of guy who says, ‘Okay, I know what I have to do…don’t call me until I get it done,'” O’Mara said, and Idun laughed and nodded.
For students who want to create their own, Idun said they should start now.
“Just try to work hard and meet as many interesting people on campus as possible, because they are out there,” he said.
O’Mara said that while the app has the potential to generate revenue, he sees it as an opportunity to “democratize financial information” in a field where there are excessive barriers to entry.
“We want to empower people to make individual decisions about how to manage their own finances,” Idun said.
Their belief in freedom of information is reflected not only in the philosophy of what the app offers, but also in the way the app itself operates. Fineas.Ai is open source software. This means that the public can freely copy and distribute the code.
O’Mara said the team’s guiding principle is to “do good by doing good.” For both men, this involves using open source technology.
Fineas.Ai is not the first app to offer services for new investors. However, access to leading competitors like Bloomberg Terminal can cost upwards of $24,000 per year, while cheaper options like ChatGPT and simpler chatbots offer similar direct analytics layouts. Mr. O’Mara said, Fineas.Ai is currently free to use, but the founders hope to make the app profitable by early 2025, with prices ranging from $14.99 to $24.99 per month, including possible student discounts. I’m thinking of doing it.
“It’s important to note that we’re not doing anything that hasn’t already been done,” O’Mara said. “We’re just doing it for a different target market.”
O’Mara and Idun’s mutual friend, Antwan Fisher, a fourth-year business administration major, is helping develop the app and further “gamify it.” Fisher took time off from the project to focus on collaboration and research while participating in the initial ideation phase, but returned to the team this year.
“We’re combining our professional backgrounds, our experience with the platform itself, and this subject matter to create what we think will be a really good product that will sell and be in high demand,” Fisher said. “Our main advantage is that we can really think about who our retail investors are, what their needs are, and how they are met by the market.”
Fineas.Ai has six staff members, all of whom currently volunteer to help build and market the app. The project is still in the early, or “pre-seed,” stage of fundraising, but O’Mara and Idun are gaining speed with the help of investments from programs such as the Northeastern Prototype Fund.
“For better or worse, information has great power,” O’Mara said. “We know that the intersection of finance and data science can lead to truly innovative applications.”
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