Appital has secured an addition £1.7 million from Frontline Ventures and several other angel investors, to bring technological innovation and automation to equity markets.
The latest investment follows a £2.5 million funding round last year, which brings the total investment raised to date to £4.85 million.
This comes ahead of the launch of Appital’s bookbuilding platform in partnership with pan-European multilateral trading facility (MTF), Turquoise, which aims to provide the buy-side with improved technology.
Through the use of the Appital platform, buy-side participants are able to originate and participate in liquidity discovery, price formation and execution opportunities in multiple days average daily volume (ADV) in publicly listed equities.
In addition, institutional investors are given full transparency and control over the bookbuilding and deal distribution process, alongside the ability to actively drive liquidity in the marketplace.
The latest funding round follows the successful integration with EMS providers FlexTrade, FactSet and TS Imagine, as well as executing brokers Instinet and Bernstein, ahead of Appital’s imminent launch.
“In the run-up to our launch we have forged partnerships and built technology infrastructure to support a new buyside workflow, giving firms control over their bookbuilding processes and bringing a highly manual activity into an automated, algorithmically driven platform,” said Mark Badyra, chief executive of Appital.
“We are thrilled to have secured additional investment from Frontline Ventures and our group of angel investors. In addition, we are very encouraged by the market response to our vision to bring buyside firms new opportunities to proactively source and interact with hard-to-find liquidity.”