BMLL, the leading, independent provider of harmonised, historical Level 3 data and analytics across global equity and futures markets, announced it has secured a USD 26 million Series B investment in its latest funding round. The round was led by Nasdaq Ventures, FactSet and IQ Capital’s Growth Fund, supported by ACF Investors and other new and existing investors.
BMLL provides historical Level 3 data and analytics to the world’s most sophisticated capital market participants. BMLL clients, including banks, brokers, asset managers, hedge funds and global exchanges, can access BMLL’s order book data and analytics enabling them to derive predictive insights, backtest strategies to generate alpha and gain an understanding of how markets behave.
The investment will help BMLL deliver on its razor-sharp focus on customer needs for more data coverage across an increasing number of global markets. The funding will support investment in acquiring new data sets globally; growing the BMLL engineering capabilities to integrate these new data and analytics capabilities into existing products for an ever-expanding universe of customers; and building on the existing presence in North America with the opening of an office in New York.
The funding news comes at a time of rapid growth for the company. BMLL has significantly grown its revenues over the last 12 months; added Tier 1 clients, including Investment Banks, Exchanges, Buy-Side firms, Academics and Regulators; expanded into the futures market; and launched its flagship product BMLL Vantage for EU and US equities and ETFs.
Paul Humphrey, CEO, BMLL, said: “We are absolutely delighted to have secured USD 26 million in our Series B funding round. The investment is testament to the increasing need for more sophisticated tools to understand how markets truly behave and drive performance. Our granular Level 3 data and analytics capabilities help market participants unlock the full potential of the predictive power of historic pricing data and make more informed decisions.”
Gary Offner, Senior Vice President and Head of Nasdaq Ventures, said: “Nasdaq Ventures is committed to investing in financial technology companies that align with our vision to reimagine the markets of tomorrow. By democratising access to the most granular data and analytics, all market participants can benefit from BMLL’s solutions, and we are delighted to support their continued growth.”
Jonathan Reeve, Executive Vice President, Head of Content and Technology Solutions at FactSet, said: “Data-driven decisions are the lifeblood of our industry and the driving force behind our product development and the collaborations we build. FactSet is pleased to support the growth and success of BMLL, which shares our commitment to empowering the financial community to make more informed investment decisions through accessing high-quality data and analytics. We are excited to invest in BMLL and its order book data and analytics platform, which gives market participants a granular understanding of market moves.”
Kerry Baldwin, Co-Founder, Managing Partner of IQ Capital: “IQ Capital led BMLL’s seed round and has continued to support the company through their very earliest stages. We have supported and worked closely with BMLL’s exceptional leadership team to develop their breakthrough Deep Tech product, which democratises access to Level 3 data for the wider industry. Our latest investment from our Growth Fund, which supports outperforming companies in our portfolio, will drive the company’s continued growth and international expansion.”
Paul Humphrey, CEO of BMLL, concluded: “It has been our mission to democratise access to Level 3 data and analytics capabilities and the latest funding will support our aim to make these insights available to a wider audience. We are immensely proud of the outstanding industry recognition we have gained over time, and I’d like to thank my team for their unwavering dedication to customer services, our esteemed clients for their support, and our investors for backing our vision.”
Over the last 12 months alone, BMLL has been on an accelerated growth path securing a number of significant customers and collaborations. BMLL counts the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) as a customer, who is using the BMLL Data Lab and BMLL Data Feed to examine order behaviour. NYU’s Quant Team uses the BMLL Data Lab to carry out research on the futures market at the university’s Mathematics in Finance Program. Kepler Cheuvreux’s teams conduct order book analytics to optimise algo performance using BMLL’s Level 3 data. What’s more, BMLL helps Aquis Exchange provide its members with insights into market structure dynamics, while SIX Group uses BMLL data for customised order book analytics for the Swiss EBBO. And Jefferies carries out detailed order book analysis for passive / aggressive trading strategies using BMLL data.
Jefferies acted as exclusive financial advisor and Taylor Wessing LLP acted as legal advisor to BMLL in connection with the transaction. Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP acted as legal advisor to Nasdaq Ventures and Mills & Reeve LLP acted as legal advisor to FactSet and IQ Capital.
6Source: BMLL
