Wall Street Veterans Back Fintech Software Start-Up

2:52 pm ET Apr 22, 2015
Wall Street Veterans Back Fintech
Software Start-Up
By
SARAH KROUSE
A fintech start-up that helps banks and trading firms modernise their desktop software has
raised $3 million in its latest round of fundraising, landing investments from three U.S. venture
capital firms and several former finance-sector executives.
The group of investors, which was co-led by Bain Capital Ventures, Pivot Investment Partners
and Nyca Partners, has invested in OpenFin, bringing the total amount the firm has raised since
it was founded five years ago to $10 million.
OpenFin helps large financial institutions improve their desktop software by allowing
applications written in website coding language HTML5 to interact with existing front-office
computer applications and run outside website browsers. While consumer finance has been
proactive in updating and overhauling technology, banks and trading firms have lagged behind
and struggled to link old software with more recent technology.
Today, 11 banks and trading firms use OpenFin, up from three global banks a year ago.
The fundraising comes 12 months after OpenFin raised $4 million in a funding round led by Bain
Capital Ventures.
The 20 individual investors include: Michael Boublik, chairman of mergers and acquisitions at
Morgan Stanley; Mark Beeston, a former chief operating officer for global credit trading at
Deutsche Bank who founded fintech venture capital fund called Illuminate Financial and was an
existing seed investor in OpenFin; ex-Sungard chief executive Cris Conde; and Frank Sica, partner
at Tailwind Capital, who was previously president of Soros Private Funds Management.
OpenFin Chief Executive Mazy Dar, who founded the firm with president and Chief Operating
Officer Chuck Doerr, said: “One of the big challenges as a start-up is that enterprise sales are
very difficult. Getting to the right people at the big firms is difficult. Having these types of
investors who have networks that understand the space has been a huge, huge help.”
Mr. Dar estimates the technology saves firms at least $3.5 million on initial software build-out
and more than $2 million per year in ongoing maintenance and development costs.
The firm, which has roughly 20 staff in London and New York, is planning to add an additional six
to eight people following the fundraising.
Venture-capital firms invested a record $5.3 billion in fintech startups last year, more than
double the level of investment in 2013, according to data provider Dow Jones VentureSource.
Goldman Sachs analysts said in a report last month that $4 trillion in revenues and $470 billion
in profits at traditional financial services companies were at risk from popular disruptive
technologies like payments and peer-to-peer lending.