V1 Interview with Quantbase Founder, Som Mohapatra
Quantbase, a quant hedge fund with minimum investments of $50, was founded in 2021 by UVA student Som Mohapatra and recent UVA alumni Thomas Stewart. The startup provides automated high-risk funds to avid investors where they can diversify their portfolios with riskier investments and greater reward potential. And through funds such as the Crypto Blue Chip Fund, they are easing the transition between traditional finance and alternative investments.
V1, the community for ambitious student builders at UVA, sat down with Som to learn more about starting his company, his experience as a builder, and his journey in creating Quantbase.
Som developed a fascination with financial markets from a young age
Som’s motivation to build a company in the financial technology industry was fueled by his father, an avid personal investor. His father was up at all hours, constantly researching different stocks and investing. Although his parents told him not to work in the finance industry multiple times, Som naturally developed the same passion for investing and understanding financial markets as his father. By the end of high school, he knew that he would create his own company, no matter which college he went to. Som chose UVA for its network in the finance industry and the McIntire School’s outstanding finance program. Som ended up building his first startup at UVA, a stock market that quantifies people’s opinions regarding classes, restaurants, and other things.
Quantbase leverages computational and financial models for automated investing
One of the most admirable aspects of Som’s journey was his self-learning. Som dove headfirst into the financial and computational concepts necessary to run his company as a second-year student. The concepts Som found especially interesting were Social Sentiment Trading Strategies and computational models such as Agent-Based Modeling. Quantbase integrates these concepts in funds like the WallStreetBets fund, a novel approach to investing using social sentiment through the WallStreetBets Reddit page.
Som is optimistic for the future of UVA’s entrepreneurial community
While building Quantbase, Som found a lack of entrepreneurial culture at UVA. But he remains hopeful as new communities, such as V1, are beginning to create that culture and develop that support. In his experience, the more important aspect that was valuable for his startup was the network that he could build by attending UVA. For example, his cofounder was another UVA alum, and lots of UVA his connections are planning to work in the financial industry in the future — one method Quantbase can use to grow its business. Apart from developing more support systems for startups and their founders at UVA, Som noted that UVA students, especially those interested in finance, are often intensely set on going into the financial industry. As a result, these students often overlook the possibility of developing their own ideas or finance startups.
Quantbase’s vision is to be a comprehensive investment platform — a Vanguard of the alternative investment industry. With the progress they’ve made so far, pushed forward by an innovative and determined founder like Som at the helm, it seems that this goal is more in reach every day.
If you’re still looking for an internship this summer, Quantbase is offering internships in Customer Success, Software Engineering, and Quantitative Portfolio Management.
- Customer Success is the role you want to take to really feel what an early-stage company is like. You will be talking to users every day, rapidly iterating on their feedback, and creating/executing strategies to reach as many similar users as possible, all the while figuring out what they like about Quantbase.
- Software Engineering interns will work closely with our ex-Google Co-Founder/CTO to develop the infrastructure Quantbase is built on to offer brokerage-agnostic investment funds. They are building out infrastructure to help us trade assets across classes (crypto, NFTs, wine, art) in the same way we trade public securities
- Quantitative portfolio management interns will research and break down portfolio management theories in equity strategies. You will work closely with our CIO to do novel research into portfolio-izing and optimizing with modern asset classes.
Reach out to Som Mohapatra at sm2pvm@virginia.edu if you are interested in one of these positions.