Futu put a stock exchange, a chat room and a news desk inside one phone app. Its Hong Kong app was called Futubull, and its customers were mostly young, mobile, and new to trading. In 2019 Chinese investors wanted easy access to Hong Kong and U.S. stocks, and the old brokers felt slow and paper-bound. Futu went public on Nasdaq that March, selling itself as the broker built for that crowd.

Trading as a Social App

Leaf Hua Li founded Futu in 2011 and served as its chairman and chief executive. The company is based in Hong Kong. The bet was that a generation raised on social apps would want a broker that felt like one. Futu built trading, market data and a community feed into the same screen. It earned money from commissions, from lending to clients who traded on margin, and from interest on client balances.

From Futubull to Moomoo

Futu priced its offering at $12 per American depositary share in March 2019. It sold 7.5 million shares and raised $90 million. The stock closed its first day up about 28 percent. Futu later took its moomoo app to the United States, Singapore, Australia and Malaysia. It ended 2025 with 3.37 million funded accounts and about $2.94 billion in revenue. It still trades on Nasdaq as FUTU.

Cover: Two Bulls Fighting, Paulus Potter. Art Institute of Chicago, public domain. Chosen for two bulls locking horns (Futubull, a bull market).