Daniel Naim

Hi! I’m Daniel, CEO and founder of Fennel, a super cool new fintech company (and registered broker-dealer!) that aims to give everyday people, like you and I, the power to hold companies accountable by becoming engaged shareholders.

Before doing the whole Founder thing, I was a Physics PhD at UC Davis researching dark matter. My love for data led me to become an active retail investor and day trader. Even though I learned quickly that day trading wasn’t for me, the exposure to capital markets made me realize how and how much investor pressure can influence the major corporations that impact our societies. Over the past year, I’ve learned a lot about how retail investors have been marginalized by the current financial system and seen firsthand how more people are getting involved and pushing companies towards change.

Fennel provides retail investors with financial and ESG data to help them become informed. It also gives them access to shareholder voting resources in order to get them using their rights as shareholders.

Fennel encourages retail investors to participate in shareholder votes. A recent study found that only 28 percent of shares held by retail investors are used to participate in shareholder votes. Shareholder votes can help determine company operations that impact the company and beyond. Fennel shows its users past and upcoming shareholder votes on its platform in order to make retail investors more aware of the impact they can have, and feel motivated to vote. Fennel’s ESG data also helps inform investors so they can have more knowledge when going into these votes.Here are some additional #FennelFacts:

• Founded in spring 2021
• 15 full-time employees
• $4.5 million in seed funding raised to date
• Fennel is registered as a Public Benefit Corporation
• Registered with FINRA as a broker-dealer as of April 2022
• Mostly remote workforce, with a concentration of employees in New York City and a small physical office in Greenwich, CT
• The product is currently in its beta phase. There’s a waitlist open on the Fennel website that will give users future access to the beta. Beta invites are expected to go out at the end of the summer.
• An official product launch is expected in the fall. Stay tuned
• Fennel charges its users a subscription fee of $4.99 per month (with the first month free). Fennel does this in order to keep its business afloat without the need to charge users commissions on their trades, collect money via payment for order flow, or generate money via securities lending.

I'd love to share what I've been learning with everyone. Here are some topics that I'm passionate about:

• Why people are critical about ESG right now, and how ESG can be used productively.
• How Millennials and Gen Z investors determine a company’s “value” differently than previous generations.
• Why shareholder activism is growing, and how it can be used to address systemic problems.
• How many retail investors unintentionally give up their right to participate in shareholder votes when signing up for other online brokerages.
• Why payment for order flow and securities lending do not have the best interests of retail investors in mind.
• How retail investors are getting more involved with the companies they invest in.

Power to the stakeholders.

-Daniel