Investagrams

Investagrams was founded in 2015 by De La Salle University schoolmates JC Bisnar, Airwyn Tin, and JM Lapina. Bisnar, who had worked as an equity dealer at Macquarie and Credit Suisse before becoming a full-time trader, started the company after observing that despite a genuinely active Philippine stock market, very few ordinary Filipinos actually participated in or benefited from it.

The platform combined real-time-priced virtual stock trading (letting new investors practice without risking real money) with educational content and charting tools, later expanding into an actual brokerage layer and, more recently, rebranding its broader platform as “Investa” with dedicated trading, mutual fund, and analytics products.

Investagrams never raised traditional venture funding beyond an early non-equity grant — a ₱500,000 prize plus mentorship from IdeaSpace Foundation and the Asian Institute of Management in 2016 — and grew primarily on its own revenue and user base. It remains active and growing, describing itself as the leading social-financial platform in the Philippines with more than one million users as of its most recent public figures.

The Philippine stock market has long been active, but most ordinary Filipinos had no accessible way to learn investing fundamentals or practice trading before risking real money, and existing brokerage tools were built for already-experienced investors rather than first-timers.

Everyday Filipino retail investors and aspiring stock market participants, from complete beginners practicing with virtual portfolios to active traders using its charting and brokerage tools.

Investagrams paired real-time-priced virtual trading with structured investing education and community features (leaderboards, competitions) rather than launching straight into a brokerage product — lowering the barrier for Filipinos who wanted to learn before committing real money, and building a large user base without relying on traditional venture funding to do it.