Covestor is a pioneer in the online investing business and the first digital asset management company to offer both active and passive investment options. Interactive Brokers is a major automated global electronic broker offering trading on over 100 electronic exchanges and trading venues around the world. The acquisition solidifies and expands Interactive Brokers' position as the leading platform for electronic trading and investing.

"Covestor brought the convenience, transparency and cost comparison capabilities that online marketplaces provide to the financial services sector," said Covestor CEO Asheesh Advani. "We developed our marketplace so that people could easily search for, compare and select investment strategies from multiple money managers. We are now joining Interactive Brokers' marketplace to bring more products to more people around the globe."

"This acquisition increases our ability to rapidly add more portfolio managers to Covestor's marketplace, provide additional asset classes to clients, and expand our offerings globally," added Steven Holstein, Covestor's Chief Marketing Officer.

Interactive Brokers' Chairman and CEO Thomas Peterffy praised the deal. "We are creating a marketplace that brings investors, wealth managers and money managers together. The acquisition of Covestor is a positive development toward making Interactive Brokers the premier global platform for investors, advisors, hedge funds and money managers to find each other." Milan Galik, President of Interactive Brokers, also added, "this development will enable us to further refine our platform to provide a more complete service to robo-advisor companies in general."

The transaction has been approved by both parties' respective boards and is expected to close in the second quarter of 2015. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.