This Week: State Street, Macrobond, Enfusion, and more

State Street announces expansion of ETF digital platform

State Street announced that Fund Connect ETF will now be open to supporting all exchange-traded fund (ETF) issuers regardless of their service provider. The platform was previously only available to issuers receiving securities services from State Street. 

Fund Connect ETF, a platform within State Street’s GlobalLink product suite, is a global online trading portal for the creation and redemption of ETFs, designed as a single point of access to many sponsors. For nearly 20 years, the portal’s automated trading solution has provided direct access to ETFs in multiple currencies, supplying a direct link between market makers, authorized participants, distributors, transfer agents, sub-advisors, and sponsors.

Fund Connect ETF will add to its existing Asia Pacific presence with a new office in Hong Kong scheduled to open later this year. 

Macrobond opens Stockholm office

Macrobond Financial, a provider of economic and financial intelligence, announced that it has opened an office in Stockholm.

Founded in Malmö in 2008, Macrobond delivers macroeconomic, aggregate financial, and sector time-series data to more than 4,000 economists, analysts, portfolio managers, quants, and strategists across 500 organizations worldwide. Macrobond serves around 200 customers in Iceland, Denmark, Sweden, and Norway, including the largest Nordic banks and asset managers, as well as government institutions, non-profit organizations, and universities. Nearly half of them are based in Sweden. 

Stockholm is Macrobond’s seventh global location in addition to London, New York, Hong Kong, Lisbon, Szeczin and Malmö.

The Stockholm office opening follows the recent appointment of chief commercial officer Howard Rees, who joined Macrobond earlier this year to deliver on the firm’s global growth plans.

Enfusion signs two new buy-side clients

Enfusion, a provider of cloud-based investment management solutions and services, announced it has signed two new clients, Dark Forest Capital Management, a systematic, global equity investment manager, and Welton Investment Partners, a systematic investment manager.

Welton Investment Partners and Dark Forest Capital Management LP have chosen Enfusion for investment management technology and managed services for operational infrastructure, scalability and overall efficiency.

Welton is leveraging Enfusion’s full front-to-back office, SaaS-based investment management platform, and its integrated managed services offering to support investment strategies involving equity swaps, futures, FX and FX forwards, commodities, and fixed income. Dark Forest Capital Management will be leveraging Enfusion’s platform for shadow accounting and analytics. W.

Digiterre, Juniper Place partner on platform for alternative asset investors

Digiterre, a software and data engineering consultancy, announced that it has partnered with Juniper Place, an investor intelligence, advisory, and placement services provider, to build Juniper Place’s new intelligence platform for alternative asset raising.

Digiterre provided software and data engineering services for the new platform, which includes functionality to generate investor intelligence data for the family office investor segment requested by leading global asset managers. Juniper Place was able to use this domain expertise to contribute to the recent co-branded BlackRock Global Family Office Survey.

Digiterre previously provided software and data engineering services to build the previous iteration of Juniper Place’s platform, the alternative asset investor intelligence platform in the market.

Exabel closes $9 million seed round and launches alternative data insights product.

Exabel, an Al, analytics, and data platform for investment teams, announced it has closed a fourth seed investment round from investor AWC (formerly Awilhelmsen Capital Holdings), bringing its total capital raised to over $21 million.

The company also announced the launch of the new Exabel Insights Platform product for alternative data vendors. The insights platform is powered by Exabel’s Al analytics, financial modeling, and data science toolset. 

The investment will underpin the company’s plans for growth in London and  New York, and support the marketing of the Exabel Insights Platform to the market of over 1,000 alternative data vendors globally.

Drawbridge announces growth equity investment from Long Ridge Equity Partners

Drawbridge, a provider of cybersecurity software and solutions to the alternative investment industry, announced it has closed a minority investment from Long Ridge Equity Partners. Drawbridge will use the funds to accelerate product innovation, expand sales and marketing activities across North America and EMEA, and continue investing in its people, platform, and client services.

Founded in 2018, Drawbridge’s solution aims to help alternative investment managers and portfolio companies address their growing cybersecurity needs by centralizing the management of a comprehensive cybersecurity program. 

As part of the investment, Kevin Bhatt and Jason Melton of Long Ridge will join members of the Drawbridge executive team on the Board of Directors.

ETrading Software and Artis launch new loan product 

Etrading Software, a provider of technology-led solutions designed for financial institutions and industry initiatives, in partnership with Artis Holdings, announced the launch of its new loan technology to help provide automation to the loan market.

In its current version, the system aims to provide an aggregated database of client and trader positioning from disparate data points across the user’s firm, in-house trading systems, including spreadsheets and third party data, such as Refinitiv’s LPC Collateral, to automatically facilitate the most efficient client targeting by the trading and sales teams.

In the second quarter of 2021, Etrading Software and Artis Holdings will release the WIC (wanted in competition) system. The WIC system is a portfolio trading tool that brings efficiencies by reducing BWIC (bids wanted in competition) execution time, by automating and streamlining aspects of the trading process and linking buy-side, dealers, and originators of WICs via their existing systems and desktop.

Creditinfo Group announces new majority shareholder

Creditinfo Group, a global credit information and decision analytics provider, announced that the private equity firm, Levine Leichtman Capital Partners (LLCP) has become its new majority shareholder. The firm will help Creditinfo Group to keep expanding operations and support financial institutions with a full suite of best-in-class credit risk management tools.

This new shareholder composition brings new direction to the company’s growth plans while also maintaining continuity for the business, with Creditinfo founder Reynir Grétarsson retaining his board seat and a significant minority shareholding.

Paul Randall, who joined Creditinfo in 2007, will lead the company through its next phase of growth as the newly appointed Group CEO, working closely with Reynir Grétarsson and LLCP.