San Francisco-based FinTech startup SoFi, known as a company that deals with student debt, has been steadily expanding into other markets, like home and personal loans, among other things.
On Wednesday (May 8), according to a report, the company announced the creation of a new index fund called GIGE, which targets the gig economy.
The fund trades on Nasdaq and is advised by Toroso Investments, with the purpose of allowing investors to participate in the sector. Toroso has a range of services built around creating and overseeing exchange-traded funds (ETFs).
SoFi also announced the launch of an ETF that will trade on the NYSE as SFYF. The fund will focus on high-growth stocks, with the intention of determining and capturing the growth of the top 50 of the 1,000 biggest publicly traded issues. SFYF is made up of public companies that exhibit strong growth based on three metrics: net income growth, future-looking consensus estimates of that growth and top-line revenue growth.
In terms of its GIGE fund, SoFi interprets the gig economy as including companies that “embrace and support the workforce in which employment is based around short-term engagements that allow for flexibility and personal freedom and temporary contracts.”
SoFi said it wants to give investors value by giving them access to industry disruptors at an earlier point in their growth cycle, as a growing number of investors want to get in on the most popular technology before it reaches critical mass. An increasing number of platforms and funds have been introduced to tap into the high demand for access to companies on the cutting-edge of artificial intelligence, cybersecurity or the next big idea.
“Our members are excited by high-growth and gig economy companies, because these companies are in many cases part of their lives,” said SoFi CEO Anthony Noto in a press release. “We’re giving our members a way to get started investing by buying what they know and investing in themselves.”