For a few dollars, you can now buy a “
share
” of a personality and build on its popularity rating.
If it gains influence, bingo, the value of its share increases and you have the option of reselling it to other buyers.
This is what the French platform Trendex offers.
For 5 euros, you can own a share of Paga, a reality TV candidate, followed by more than two million people on Instagram.
The value of the share fluctuates according to the notoriety of the personality, so count 3 euros for a share of Andy Delort, attacker at OGC Nice or 2 euros for Teddy Baubigny, rugby player at Racing 92. For the time being,
About
thirty “
VIPs
”, as Trendex stipulates, are present on the site: athletes, actors, influencers, YouTubers and musicians.
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In total, each "
VIP
" has 100,000 shares, which he puts on sale when he wishes.
For the first sale, he chooses a certain number, between 5,000 and 10,000.
Then, with Trendex, he sets a unit price, determined by his popularity.
The platform examines, among other things, the number of subscribers on the main network of the “
VIP
” and the engagement rate of its community.
To achieve this, the company has several tools, allowing for example to check if these followers are real or not.
"
The fan side is very important
"
After 30 to 90 days, a first phase of sales closes to make way for the secondary market. Also on Trendex, investors can sell their shares to other buyers, with the possibility of generating a capital gain if their value has increased. “
Today, people want to make investments that are meaningful to them, the fan side is very important,
” says Andrea Bonapersona, co-founder of Trendex. A notion well understood by the platform since the three “
best
” investors of each star, in other words those who hold the most shares, obtain advantages, such as an evening with the “
VIP
”.
», A videoconference or an autographed video.
Launched last August, the platform now has 10,000 investors and aims to reach 100,000 by the end of the year.
Their average age is 27, the basket invested is around a hundred euros per person.
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To remunerate itself, Trendex has 20% of the shares of each personality, engaged over twenty years with the Corsican company.
Of the remaining 80%, that is to say 80,000 shares, the “
VIPs
” recover the entire amount of sales.
Currently, Paga, Anthony Paggini Neuron of his real name, has sold more than 9,300 shares and is about to exceed the threshold of 6 euros per unit.
To promote his profile, the thirty-something has published several advertisements on his social networks.
These announcements came just before the broadcast of the television program "
Les Marseillais VS Le Reste du Monde
", watched by more than 770,000 French people last season and representing 3.2% of audience share.
Paga himself has invested between 3,500 and 5,000 euros in other reality TV candidates he knows well, all followed by millions of Internet users on their social networks.
"We need more clarity"
“
It's a platform right on trend, but to gain credibility we need more clarity, especially about celebrity engagement
,” said Alice Lhabouz, founder of the asset management company Trecento Asset Management.
For its part, Trendex checks the identity cards of its users so that only adults can invest.
The platform plans to create a virtual section, where miners can try their hand at investing with fictitious money.
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Andrea Bonapersona wants Trendex to become a major player in the French market, before exporting internationally and in particular to the United States.
“Ultimately, brands will be able to pay celebrities directly through Trendex.
So the personalities will get the income from these shares and the value of their popularity will increase,
”he adds.
The first secondary markets should open within a few days, thus making it possible to measure the potential of this new type of investment.
