This Week: FundGuard’s Series-C funding round; List; Confluence & more

FundGuard completes $100m Series C Funding Round

FundGuard, an investment fund accounting platform for asset managers and service providers, has completed its series-C funding round, worth around $100 million.

Lior Yogev, CEO and co-founder at FundGuard, started the company in 2018 after working at Multifonds, which was later acquired by enterprise software provider Temenos. It was in this role that he observed many large banks and asset managers running into familiar and repeating problems with legacy technology.

“I just wanted to pull my hair out and say, ‘How can it be that so many trillions of dollars are being managed that way?’” Yogev tells WatersTechnology.

He says FundGuard’s value proposition of being cloud-native and using artificial intelligence from the outset provides a modern alternative to the more archaic legacy systems that most banks and asset managers are built on.

“People have had this thesis that this industry needs material change, and the solutions at the core of the industry are 30 to 40 years old and currently don’t support the levels of efficiencies that are needed in the market today,” he says. “People were coming in saying, ‘Hey, we want to fund you, we want to help you move faster.’”

With the series C completed, FundGuard is targeting further expansion of its offices in Boston, Toronto, and London. After all the hard work put into the funding round, the venture’s success has been gratifying, John Lehner, president of FundGuard, says.

“Building the product the way it needs to be done is not the easiest way,” Lehner says. “What’s the saying? ‘There’s the easy wrong or the hard right.’ Sometimes the hard way is the right way—building [FundGuard] from the bottom up and being really focused about it … it is very validating.”

Talos connects to TP Icap’s Fusion

Talos, a provider of institutional digital asset trading technology, announced it has integrated with TP Icap’s Fusion Digital Assets, a UK-regulated spot crypto digital assets exchange registered with the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA).

Fusion Digital Assets is a trading venue for institutional participants offering liquidity from TP Icap’s traditional and crypto native clients. Talos clients can now access TP Icap’s Fusion liquidity via the Talos API or GUI.

List completes final phase of migrating clients onto Euronext’s Optiq trading platform

List, which is owned by Ion Group, announced that it has migrated its Borsa Italiana and derivatives clients onto European exchange Euronext’s Optiq trading platform.

The migration follows Euronext’s acquisition of the Borsa Italiana cash and derivatives markets exchange in April 2021. Euronext is replacing Borsa Italiana’s previous Millennium and SOLA technologies with the Optiq trading platform.

List also upgraded its FastTrade trading solution, giving clients access to Euronext pan-European ecosystem. FastTrade’s connectivity architecture allows for a transition to the Optiq technology that Euronext uses for the Italian derivatives market, minimizing operational risks and transition costs. The migration gives investors access to a broader range of products and new functionalities unique to the Euronext platform.

Confluence integrates MSCI ESG Research data into Style Analytics

Confluence announced it is integrating MSCI ESG Research data into its factor investing analytics solution, Style Analytics.

The overlay of MSCI ESG Research data into Style Analytics allows for drill-down capabilities and fund-of-funds capabilities for United Nations sustainable development goals and other analytics. It provides users with actionable data, identifying optimal investment opportunities and monitoring their performance over time.

Broadridge’s Releases New Investor Insights Solution

Broadridge has announced the launch of Broadridge Investor Insights, an analytics platform that helps issuers understand their investors and voting patterns. This is part of the company’s new suite of solutions for issuers based outside the US.

The dashboard automatically links shareholder and voting information, providing issuers with real-time insight into their domestic and cross-border shareholders. Capabilities are directly accessible to issuers through a centralized platform, enabling them to connect and engage with their underlying investors. Additionally, users can further enrich the voting data with any external source through an array of digital integration options including APIs, maximizing voting data coverage.