Cicada, the US-regulated electronic trading platform, has raised US$13.5 million in a Series A funding round led by Citi. The investment includes participation from B3 (the Brazilian Stock Exchange) via its venture capital arm L4, alongside Kaszek, Dila, and Crestone. A parallel strategic equity program has also been established to attract leading Wall Street institutions as committed market makers, aiming to anchor liquidity and accelerate the platform’s growth.
The investment will focus on bringing efficiency to Latin American local-currency bond markets, which currently rely heavily on voice-driven trading. In Mexico’s US$500 billion fixed income market, more than 98% of daily trading remains non-electronic. Cicada will address this through its SEC-registered alternative trading system (ATS), which provides an all-to-all marketplace and proprietary execution protocols, including one of the first central limit order books (CLOB) for Mexican local-currency bonds.
This new capital will be used to expand commercial operations, increase liquidity, and integrate with third-party global platforms. Cicada also plans to extend its product range into electronic interest rate swap execution, specifically targeting the Mexican TIIE market. This sector currently sees average daily trading volumes of approximately US$24 billion and represents a significant area for continued digital transformation in regional finance.
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