TransFICC, a provider of low-latency connectivity and workflow services for fixed income and derivatives markets, has closed its Series A investment round for GBP5.75 million.
Led by AlbionVC, it included new strategic investments from ING Ventures and HSBC.
The new investors join existing shareholders, Citi, Illuminate Financial, Main Incubator (the R&D unit of Commerzbank Group) and The FinLab.
The investment will be used to extend product and market coverage for existing and new clients. TransFICC’s current clients include five global investment banks and one global market data vendor.
TransFICC tackles the issue of market fragmentation by providing banks and asset managers with a unified low-latency, robust and scalable API. Its ‘One API for eTrading’ platform provides connectivity to multiple trading venues while supporting a variety of workflows across asset classes such as rates and credit bonds, and interest rate swaps. TransFICC enables financial institutions to access their required eTrading venues, while streamlining technology requirements and reducing operational costs.
“Banks and asset managers are demanding technology solutions which deliver automation and increased efficiency, but they also want a modern and flexible modular design,” says Steve Toland, founder of TransFICC. “Our technology solution addresses the significant issue of market fragmentation, whilst enabling trading firms to cut costs and develop a technology stack combining outsourced and in-house technology.”
He adds: “Our four bank shareholders will help us to closely align our services with client requirements, meaning we are well positioned to capitalise on banks and asset managers looking for a modern fintech alternative to legacy systems.”
“We believe TransFICC has a huge opportunity to become the defacto standard API gateway between banks and trading venues. This view is supported by TransFICC’s five banking clients and an extensive prospect pipeline,” says Robert Whitby-Smith, partner at AlbionVC. “We are delighted to join such a strong syndicate of investors supporting this exciting opportunity and look forward to working closely with Steve and the team.”
“The fixed income market structure is changing rapidly, and banks need to evolve their legacy systems with simpler and innovative technology solutions that enable them to increase the automation of trading workflows. In addition, banks need to reduce their technology costs and TransFICC is addressing all these issues at a rapid pace,” says Stephane Malrait, head of market structure and innovation at ING.
“TransFICC’s open source technology, automated testing and delivery processes enable the firm to develop software rapidly, while the fact that they use both cloud technology and co-location services allows HSBC to more efficiently deploy systems where we need them,” says Seth Osher, global head of flow fixed income IT at HSBC.
“Working with TransFICC as part of our Innovation Lab has been extremely positive,” says Stuart Riley, global head of operations and technology for markets and securities services at Citi. “Providing the company with office space in our lab allowed Citi and TransFICC development teams to work side-by-side and co-create very rapidly, integrating development and testing processes to deliver and release value-add functionality on a daily basis. Our experience with TransFICC has paved the way for a new operating model for Citi with start-ups.”
“We are very proud to have foreseen the potential and success of TransFICC from a very early stage. Since our first investment in 2017, the team has made tremendous progress and is revolutionising the FICC e-trading market with their innovative platform technology approach,” comments Christoph Osburg, senior investment manager at main incubator, the R&D unit and early stage investor of the Commerzbank Group. “We are convinced that with new investors and solid financing the company will continue to perform well and that TransFICC will be able to attract many new international trading clients in the future.”
“We are delighted to continue supporting the TransFICC team in their journey,” says Mark Whitcroft, founding partner at Illuminate Financial. “With the backing of now six global financial institutions, as clients or investors, the team is successfully executing their vision to become the API layer in electronic trading. As an investor in enterprise technology for financial markets, the proposition aligned with our key theses on electronification of markets and cloud adoption. We look forward to the next phase of TransFICC’s growth as a trusted partner.”
