KaChing rings up $7.5M in financing

KaChing Group Inc's online service — touted as an alternative to mutual funds — may still be in its infancy. But kaChing today announced it has secured $7.5 million in financing.

The funding, led by DAG Ventures LLC, will be used to fuel kaChing’s growth and infrastructure expansion.

KaChing has drawn a fair amount of media attention for its service. The service started out as a fantasy investment site, akin to fantasy sports sites.

But kaChing, which tracks and identifies skilled investors it calls “geniuses,” now allows users to follow and manually emulate the trades of those geniuses on the site for free.

Users who want to mirror the trades of a genius in their brokerage account automatically must pay kaChing a management fee. That rake, which is set by the site’s geniuses, averages 1.25% annually.

“DAG’s investment is a tremendous validation for our vision,” Andy Rachleff, kaChing’s chief executive and co-founder, said.

KaChing does have competitors, most notably Covestor Investment Management. Both kaChing, which has a big following on Facebook, and Covestor are Securities and Exchange Commission-registered investment advisers.