Sponsored – Football and Technology have never had an easy relationship; Ryan Bertrand former Chelsea player is trying to buck this trend. Whilst simultaneously putting in a sterling performance to secure a place in the 2016 England squad in the Euro’s, the Southampton left-back has co-founded an innovative yet scarcely known fin-tech venture.
This start-up Silicon Markets operates out of One Canada Square in the heart of Canary Wharf’s prestigious fin-tech accelerator Level 39. Silicon Markets was in its inception a brokerage dedicated to revolutionising retail trading with a bespoke offering of advanced Machine Learning and AI software. Ryan gave his reason for setting up his new venture “I kind of wanted to go against the grain, the traditional footballer who reaches perhaps mid-30s, stops and then thinks ‘what am I going to do now?’ ”
Silicon Markets is ideally placed to cause disruption to the retail brokerage industry, with its nuanced focus on technology, adding value to users’ and providing new insight into how technology can be used to demystify the complex global financial system.
Footiemoji and John Terry
Ryan’s venture with ex-England captain John Terry has also made a splash. Footiemoji, is aimed at a significantly broader audience. Footiemoji is set to be the electronic equivalent of football stickers; it allows users to buy football themed emoji packs for mobile messaging.
Bertrand hopes that this company will be able to duplicate the success of a similar app in the U.S and has produced the app to be released in time to capitalize on the European Championship commence next month.
Bertrand’s interest in finance started at an early age at the age of eighteen, when he started Trading with fellow Gillingham youth player Louis Bell, whom would later become his business partner.
Louis Bell would go on to work in the City as a trader, which led him to spot a potential gap in the market, providing institutional level technology to the retail trader. This was when he and Ryan founded Silicon Markets to bridge the gap between Trading floors and the retail brokerage sector.
“Tech’s massive – it’s all over the news. You’ve got Tesla, you’ve got Elon Musk, tech is revolutionising everything that everyone does,” stated an enthused Bell, 25. “I honestly believe finance is changing, especially for the everyman who just wants to trade. Our goal is to allow him to trade as close to professionals as possible.”
