Thomas Pischke studied physics. In 2015 he co-founded Trade Republic with Christian Hecker and Marco Cancellieri, who was an early developer. The company began as Neon Trading inside comdirect's start-up incubator in Munich.
Pischke's part was the trading architecture, the system that places and settles customers' orders. The trading app launched in 2019. In January 2021 the company halted purchases of meme stocks, which led to more than 4,000 complaints to BaFin.
Fractional shares came in 2022, along with expansion to 17 countries and layoffs in June. In December 2023 Trade Republic won a full ECB banking licence, and a debit card followed in 2024.
The company was valued at €12.5 billion in December 2025. By April 2026 it had about 10 million customers and €150 billion in assets.