Afterpay Ltd (ASX: APT) first began trading on the ASX on 29 June 2017.
The following day, shares in the then nascent buy now, pay later (BNPL) company closed at $2.90.
You may not have heard of the company back then. Few investors had.
But over the following years, as the Afterpay share price continued to push higher and the BNPL space grew more popular, the company began to make regular financial headlines and was added to ever more portfolios.
Just before the onset of the pandemic driven market selloff, on 21 February 2020, Afterpay was trading for $38.44 per share. That was up a phenomenal 1,225% since its second day of listing.
In the following month, like most every ASX share, the Afterpay share price crumbled. On 20 March 2020 it bottomed out at $12.44 per share, a loss of 68%.
But Afterpay wasn't down and out. Far from out.
Over the next 11 months the buy now, pay later company's share price soared 1,121%, peaking out at $151.92 on 19 February this year. Meaning investors who hadn't heard of the company before then, almost certainly did during its incredible march higher.
Which also means that ASX investors keeping a keen eye open for 'the next Afterpay', hoping to get in early.
Image source: Getty Images
Could this ASX share really be the next Afterpay?
Dean Fergie is the director of Cyan Investment Management. And Afterpay is one of the shares that counts as an early win for the fund.
Speaking to Livewire, when Fergie was asked what his "next Afterpay" was, he "fired back with Raiz Invest Ltd (ASX: RZI)". If you're not familiar with Raiz, Livewire explains, the company was "the name behind the retail-investing-platform-formerly-known-as-ACORNS."
Here's how the micro-investing platform has been performing.
How has Raiz Invest been performing?
Raiz listed on the ASX on 21 June 2018.
Since closing at $1.39 per share on its second day of trading, the Raiz share price has gained 22%.
The past 12 months has seen that performance pick up, with Raiz shares gaining 77% since this time last year.
Raiz got a good boost from some strong figures in its full 2021 financial year report.
Revenue grew 37% year-on-year to $13.4 million and the company ended the year with $19.4 million cash on hand, as at 30 June.
So is Raiz the next Afterpay?
We'll leave those prognostications to the expert analysts, like Dean Fergie.
