Fintech startup secures EUR 14.4 million from global banks

BNY Mellon, Goldman Sachs, BNP Paribas Securities Services and Citigroup led the strategic investment round. Longtime strategic partner Deutsche Börse Group also participated in the round. The lead investors will connect to the HQLAᵡ platform in 2021 to accelerate collateral mobility for their clients across the securities finance ecosystem. BNY Mellon will connect as Triparty Agent and Agent Lender, Goldman Sachs as Principal, BNP Paribas Securities Services as Triparty Agent, and Citibank as Custodian.

HQLAᵡ is an innovative financial technology firm founded by financial market practitioners. The company’s vision is to accelerate the financial ecosystem’s transition towards frictionless ownership transfers of assets leveraging Distributed Ledger Technology. Core clients are financial institutions active in securities lending and collateral management - a process that aims to reduce credit risk in unsecured financial transactions. The HQLAᵡ platform enables market participants to transfer ownership of securities seamlessly across disparate collateral pools at precise moments in time. This allows participants to optimize their liquidity management and collateral management activities, thereby generating operational efficiency gains and capital cost savings.

The company’s co-founder and CEO (Guido Stroemer), CTO (Raoul Bhoedjang) and software engineers are based in Switzerland. HQLAᵡ also has strong ties to Switzerland, thanks to its Zug-based subsidiary.

Guido Stroemer, Chairman and CEO of HQLAᵡ, said: “Our company has come a long way from starting as a concept in an R3 Laboratory to partnering with Deutsche Börse and going into production with early adopters Commerzbank, Credit Suisse and UBS. Closing this strategic investment round with BNP Paribas Securities Services, BNY Mellon, Citigroup and Goldman Sachs is another major step towards market adoption.”

(Press release / RAN)

Picture: Guido Stroemer (left), Raoul Bhoedjang