Wikinvest launches wiki for investing, raises cash

Wikinvest, a site that allows investors to collaborate by editing pages about stocks and other opportunities, has raised $2.5 million in a first round of capital.

The San Francisco company launched two months ago. The investment was made by Silicon Valley venture firm DCM.

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It’s not clear how this company can distinguish itself, given the large number of other Web 2.0 investment sites (i.e., CakeFinancial, Stockpickr, SocialPicks) and financial news sites (i.e., Seeking Alpha, Monitor110) that have launched recently. It relies on people to contribute to the site, but providing incentives to insightful people to take the time to participate may be tough. The company lets users type in a company name to get information about a company, but they can also start with an idea like the rising price of oil, the crisis in subprime lending or the iPhone. Moderated wiki companies already exist, from non-profit Wikipedia, to for-profit Wikia.

Wikinvest divides company coverage into “neutral”, “bull,” and “bear” perspectives so that investors can understand the range of arguments for and against investing in a particular stock. In addition, the site lets users add insights about movements in stock prices, including letting them annotate WikiCharts, or stock charts open to outside editing.