Startup offers trading in 'value of human success'

Forget companies, gold and bitcoin, a London-based startup is promising to use AI and big data to let investors trade the economic value of successful people - from sports stars to politicians to social media influences.

Aqua Digital Rising says it has used big data analytics linked to AI to construct indices based on humans.

Hundreds of data points, covering things like social influence and financial performance, are collected and analysed and then benchmarked against peer groups to allow a value to be created for individuals.

When trading opens early next year, investors will be able to trade the value of over 2000 individuals - including business people, entrepreneurs and movie stars - based on real-time pricing.

Yasin Sebastian Qureshi, head of strategy, Aqua, says: "For the first time in history investors will be able to invest in the source of all value creation: the individual human being.

"We are using mathematics, AI, machine learning and big data analysis to create alt-assets which allow investors to identify and put a value on success."

Having so far funded the venture themselves, the Aqua founders are now planning to carry out a raise on the Eureeca Crowd Funding platform next month.