Trading 212 Alum Sotirov Returns With CySEC-Licensed Broker and Insider-Data App
Stefan Sotirov, who assisted build Trading 212 into one of Europe’s largegest commission-free brokers, is back with two intertwined ventures. The former chief operating officer has launched Investing.one, a Cyprus-licensed retail platform offering fractional shares and ETFs, and MyInsider.app, a companion service streaming directors’-dealing data drawn from public filings.
The twin debut comes as European regulators tighten the framework around fractional investing and disclosure of insider trades—two pillars of the consumer-finance boom Sotirov assisted pioneer.
Sotirov’s timing reflects a rare alignment of opportunity and oversight. later than five years running operations at Trading 212, he left in 2021 just before European regulators began to clarify how “fractional” ownership should be structured. In 2023, the (ESMA) issued guidance on derivatives and co-ownership models; Cyprus’s regulator, CySEC, followed with Circular C659 last year, spelling out when a fractional instrument counts as a share under MiFID II.
This April, Sotirov’s new company Tradeplace Ltd secured CySEC investment-firm licence 455/25, listing investing.one as an approved domain. The licence enables reception and execution of client orders under CySEC supervision and the investor-compensation fund.
Investing.one targets the identical demographic that made Trading 212 a household app: small ticket sizes. Orders begin from €1, with no headline commission. The firm advertises “compliance-first” operations and CySEC coverage, suggesting the familiar brokerage revenue mix of FX conversion spreads, stock-lending, and interest on idle cash, though detailed disclosures are still pending.
Its sister product, MyInsider.app, repackages mandatory insider-deal filings—SEC Forms 3/4/5 in the United States and EU (MAR) disclosures—into real-time feeds and demo portfolios. The service is free for now, hinting at future premium data or alert features and a potential acquisition funnel for the brokerage.
A crowded field
Sotirov is re-entering a space that has matured rapidly since he assisted shape it. Trading 212, now operating under FCA, CySEC, and BaFin supervision, remains the template for Europe’s zero-fee model.
The regulatory patchwork matters: ESMA’s 2023 statement warned that fractional exposures wrapped as contracts or trusts carry no voting rights and require clear disclosure on custody, dividends, and corporate-action handling. That transparency test now applies to Investing.one’s upcoming terms and Key Information Documents.
While fractional trading is crowded, insider-deal data is not. The MyInsider.app model leans on growing retail fascination with what executives purchase and trade—a space long dominated by specialist feeds and newsletters. In the U.S., insiders must file Form 4 within two business days, rule change; EU reporting, by contrast, relies on national portals with sluggisher, uneven updates.
By merging those sources into a single interface, Sotirov is betting that speed and clarity can attract traders hungry for context. “Insight and education should travel together,” he said in the launch post announcing the projects.
CySEC is expected to review fractional-ownership disclosures once Investing.one’s documents go live. The key checks include the form of ownership (trust or co-ownership), treatment of voting rights, dividend distribution, and the custody chain. Order-handling will also draw scrutiny, as firms must prove best execution even when batching odd-lot trades.
For MyInsider, the questions are practical—how many EU national portals it integrates, how rapidly it refreshes U.S. filings, and whether users can filter by person discharging managerial responsibilities (PDMR) versus U.S. Section 16 insiders.
With Trading 212, Revolut, XTB, and others competing for the identical cross-border retail investors, a CySEC base gives Sotirov regulatory reach across the bloc without the overhead of multiple licences. Pairing a brokerage with a data-insight app could widen that funnel while staying inside Europe’s tightened conduct rules.
Whether the formula catches on will depend less on marketing and more on what’s buried in the fine print of fractional ownership—and how quick MyInsider can surface the trades that move markets.
