Castle Island Ventures Leads $1.9 million Investment in CoinMetrics

Coin Metrics, a provider of crypto asset market and network data, has closed a $1.9 million seed round of venture funding. Castle Island Ventures led the financing, with participation from Fidelity Investments, Highland Capital Partners and Dragonfly Capital. Tim Rice, co-founding CEO of CoinMetrics, says: “Our approach to aggregating crypto asset market data will use the guiding principles from the IOSCO Financial Benchmarks. We intend to bridge the wild west crypto market data world by translating fair value measurements, similar to FASB 157, and providing a credible confidence level assessment of fair value pricing for any particular market.”

Brexit: FIA Co-Signs Letter to European Commission on Equivalence of Trading Venues

The FIA, along with numerous other industry organisations, has signed a letter to European Commission Vice President Valdis Dombrovskis regarding the equivalence of UK trading venues. The letter requests urgent action by the EU authorities to adopt equivalence decisions regarding UK trading venues under EMIR and MIFID in the event of the UK leaving the EU without a deal, explaining the impact on EU27 market participants and European derivatives markets in the case of a no-deal Brexit. You can access the letter here.

SX Sells its 18.6% Stake in IRESS

The Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) has entered an agreement to sell its 18.6% stake in IRESS, terminating an 18-year investment in the developer of software and services for financial markets and wealth management. The sale has been underwritten at a fixed price of $11.95 per share and is expected to realise gross proceeds of $385 million. ASX managing director Dominic Stevens says: “IRESS has been an attractive investment for ASX over many years. But we believe now is the right time to divest as it no longer provides the strategic value to ASX that it once did.”

CAT NMS Names FINRA as Plan Processor for the CAT after Dropping Thesys

CAT NMS has selected the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) as plan processor for the consolidated audit trail (CAT), having dumped previous plan processor Thesys Technologies earlier this year. CAT NMS, which is responsible for implementation of the CAT, has also released updated industry member technology specifications and industry member technical specifications scenarios.

QuantHouse Adds Euronext’s FastMatch FX Tape to API Ecosystem

QuantHouse has added Euronext’ FastMatch consolidated market data product, FX Tape, to its API ecosystem. Available as part of QuantFeed and responsible for normalising and disseminating market data for over 140 feeds, FastMatch’s FX Tape provides a large degree of post-trade transparency. Kevin Wolf, CEO of FastMatch, comments: “FX Tape makes post-trade information for the spot market accessible to everyone as we deliver transaction information from a broad range of sources. We anticipate that QuantHouse will act as a complementary channel for those wishing to access the FX Tape in addition to our suite of Spot FX Market Data products.”

BSO Partners Stake Capital to Deliver Blockchain Staking-as-a-Service

Stake Capital, a provider of secure delegation services, has partnered network, cloud and hosting provider BSO to deliver blockchain staking-as-a-service for institutional cryptocurrency. The Stake Capital platform and its digital assets custodian services enable institutional investors to securely manage their crypto investments while viewing insights and analytics regarding their investments’ performance through staking and lending. BSO is equipping Stake Capital with private connectivity to Amazon Web Services (AWS), which delivers low latency and avoids using the public internet. Stake Capital is leveraging the AWS platform to ensure maximum uptime and availability across all proof-of-stake networks.

InfluxData Raises $60 Million Funding to Further Develop its Time Series Database

InfluxData, creator of the InfluxDB time series database, has raised $60 million in Series D funding, led by Norwest Venture Partners and joined by Sorenson Capital and existing investors Sapphire Ventures, Battery Ventures, Mayfield Fund, Trinity Ventures and Harmony Partners. The funds will support further investment in product innovation, with increased focus on the cloud, and building out sales and marketing to meet growing product demand, as well as customer support. InfluxData will also begin to market its solutions for specific uses, including financial services.

Vela Partners Smart Order Router Provider CoinRoutes

Vela, a trading and market access technology firm, has partnered CoinRoutes, a provider of consolidated data, smart order routing (SOR) and algorithmic trading for crypto investors, in order to extend its crypto-asset SOR offering and achieve optimal aggregate prices across selected crypto exchanges. Peggy Sullivan, chief of staff at Vela, says, “Our partnership with CoinRoutes allows traders to leverage sophisticated SOR and algorithmic strategies to achieve best execution.”

IHS Markit Adds ESG Solution for Private Capital Markets

IHS Markit has introduced an environmental, social and governance (ESG) data collection and reporting solution for private equity (PE) firms, venture capital (VC) firms, their portfolio companies and investors. The solution is part of iLEVEL, a platform connecting participants in private capital markets. ESG reporting in iLEVEL covers 29 metrics relevant to investors seeking data from portfolio companies and PE or VC funds. The metrics include CO2 footprint, diversity in employment and independence of board members, helping general partners and limited partners apply non-financial data to their value creation and risk management processes, two areas of interest for investors.

Shield FC Wins Deloitte RegTech Challenge

Shield Financial Compliance (Shield FC) has been named by Deloitte as one of the most innovative start-ups using artificial intelligence (AI) to solve regulatory challenges in the financial sector.

Shield FC’s cross-regulation compliance platform provides a 360 view of all electronics communications and trades, making compliance more efficient and ROI driven.

“As Deloitte, we are proud to create for Shield FC the opportunity to be a part of our innovation ecosystem that aims to solve real business problems and meet our clients’ needs,” said the Deloitte RegTech Challenge team.