Ed Westwick Teams Up With Shares to Champion New Era of Social Investing

Hollywood star, Ed Westwick, is stepping into the business world by partnering with Europe’s first social trading app, Shares, to advance a new chapter in investing by breaking down barriers for first-time investors.

The White Gold and Gossip Girl star has joined the Shares family as a business partner as it continues on its growth trajectory, and stars in Shares’ first campaign, launching on 17th October, across Shares’ Social and Digital channels as well as Ed Westwick’s own social channels.

The campaign debunks myths of the investment world, showing that investing can be social and accessible, simple, social and fun. Ed’s role in the campaign brings to life Share’s mission to level the investing playing field and make financial freedom accessible for everyone.

The campaign sees Ed in luxurious settings akin to his iconic role on the Upper-East side. Each creative explores why investing is better with your friends and family, using the Shares app where users can build, communicate on and support their investing strategies together.

Ed’s journey to becoming a member of the Shares family started when the company was founded in 2021, with the company identifying Ed as a keen business advocate looking to support innovative new businesses. After meeting with Shares Founder and CEO Benjamin Chemla, Ed joined the company as a business partner and now stars as the face of Shares’ pioneering campaign.

Commenting on the new campaign, Benjamin Chemla, Founder & CEO said, “We’re pumped to welcome Ed to the Shares family as he embarks on his own investing journey. As well as coming on board as part of the Shares family, Ed’s participation in our first campaign will demonstrate to a new generation of investors that the investment world is open for all.

We wanted to create a fun, light-hearted campaign that demonstrates how investment does not have to be boring and how the unique social platform that Shares offers harnesses the power of community to bring investments to the masses – not just the New York elite.”

Since launching in the UK in May 2022, Shares has garnered over 150,000 users and shot up the app charts to become the second most downloaded app in the ‘Finance’ category on the App Store and the sixth most downloaded app in the UK at the time in May 2022. Shares combines the simplicity of an investment platform with all the features users would expect from a social media app, creating a new category entirely – “social trading” that offers users the chance to engage meaningfully around finance and investing and learn from an engaged community. Customers can learn and chat about investing with their friends, family, and like-minded communities while getting access to hundreds of US stocks.

The news follows Shares’ rapid expansion and a Series B raise of $40M, bringing the total raised to $90M – turbo-charging plans to expand across Europe whilst launching a raft of community product features that will underpin a social-first experience for its users. Earlier in October, Shares also announced that tennis champions, Serena and Venus Williams, invested in the app and became brand ambassadors.

Ed Westwick comments: “There are a number of investing platforms out there at the moment, but none speak to the growing Gen Z investing community as well as Shares does. I love the idea of being able to trade and communicate with like-minded people at the same time, and it’s incredibly exciting to be involved with such a fast-growing company.

I’m looking forward to continuing to be a face for Shares across brand campaigns, as well as continuing my ambassador role via endorsing the brand on social media.”

The new campaign was created by Brother Film Co. and will run from 17th October to 25th November on TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, Snapchat and Facebook.

Co-Founded by Benjamin Chemla, Chief Executive Officer; François Ruty, Chief Technology Officer; and Harjas Singh, Chief Product Officer, Shares came from ideation to launch in short succession. Since its launch, Shares has built a strong team of industry leaders from the likes of Revolut, Trade Republic, Monzo, Coinbase, Stuart, Morgan Stanley, Bumble, Gorillas, Gopuff, and FreeNow

UK residents can download the Shares app via the Apple App Store (for iOS devices) and Google Play Store (for Android devices). Those interested but not in the UK may sign up to the waitlist, by downloading the app from app stores, to get first access to the app when it goes live in their country.