Online investment club Cake Financial has opened for business on Facebook, offering users the opportunity to track and share their investment portfolios and trading activity with their social network.
Facebook members who add the Cake Investment Club application to their profile will receive daily alerts when their friends make trades. Participating users will be able to share investment portfolios and trading information from their brokerage accounts, without revealing sensitive personal information such as net worth.
"According to a poll recently conducted on Facebook, more than 40% of the 50 million Facebook members currently invest or are interested in becoming better investors," says Steven Carpenter, founder and CEO of San Francisco-based Cake Financial. "But until now, they haven't had an easy way to discuss real investments with their friends and family. The Cake Investment Club finally gives Facebook members the support they need to get started investing, insights into what their friends and family are actually buying and selling, and opportunities to make more informed decisions about their portfolio holdings."
Privately-held Cake Financial was launched at the September 2007 TechCrunch conference. The commpany is backed by Alsop Louie Partners and a number of angel investors including Ron Conway and Baseline Ventures. The move to Facebook represents the company's first effort to extend its online platform across the wider Web.