Deutsche Börse’s DB1 Ventures leads the Series B funding round in WeMatch

As part of their USD 19.5 million Series B equity funding round, DB1 Ventures has acquired a minority stake in WeMatch, a fintech company digitizing the wholesale derivatives industry. The deal closed on 30 September 2021. Other investors in the funding round included Augmentum Fintech PLC, Illuminate Financial and existing shareholder J.P. Morgan.

WeMatch develops web-based solutions to replace voice broking by automating matching, negotiation and lifecycle management for instruments such as securities borrowing and lending, total return swaps, interest rate derivatives, as well as equity derivatives. It provides market participants with a one-stop solution across a range of assets, cutting costs for clients, increasing efficiency and reducing conduct risk for traders.

The investors believe in the enormous potential for WeMatch to help the capital market industry in further adopting digital solutions across multiple markets globally, and to apply this technology to internal and client-facing solutions.

“The digitalization of workflows combined with seamless access to large liquidity pools at market infrastructure providers has been driving the collaboration between WeMatch and Deutsche Börse; hence, this investment makes perfect sense and further strengthens our partnership.” says Matthias Graulich, Member of the Eurex Clearing Executive Board at Deutsche Börse. “It is a win-win from our perspective – Deutsche Börse will benefit from WeMatch’s agility and innovation power, and WeMatch will benefit from our deep liquidity pools and strong global distribution power facilitating further growth for both firms.”

“We are thrilled to have completed this Series B and to welcome DB1 Ventures, Illuminate Financial, and Augmentum Fintech PLC as new investors, in addition to receiving the continued support from our existing shareholders,” says Joseph Seroussi, WeMatch co-CEO. “The combination of the significant synergies with a leading European exchange like Deutsche Börse, the continued support of our banking partners J.P. Morgan and Société Générale, and the contribution of impactful Fintech VCs like Illuminate Financial and Augmentum, will help us deliver our project to digitize capital market workflows on a global scale for both sell-side and buy-side Institutions.”

Tim Levene, CEO of Augmentum Fintech, says: “At Augmentum we have been convinced for some time that innovative fintech solutions could improve capital market efficiency. WeMatch is already active in multiple asset classes and is leveraging technology to change how market participants interact, helping reduce operational risk while controlling costs thanks to their differentiated subscription model, and as such fits our thesis.”

“In many markets the levels of adoption of electronic trading varies hugely between the cash instruments versus their derivatives,” says Mark Beeston, Founder & Managing Partner at Illuminate Financial. “Securities lending and most derivatives remain heavily voice traded and attempts by platforms to digitise these markets have largely failed. We are excited to partner with the experienced team at WeMatch who have already built multiple fit for purpose solutions in this significant market. We look forward to connecting them to our partner network and supporting them through their next phase of growth.”

WeMatch was founded in 2016 by a team of five, with dealing and brokerage backgrounds, and currently has 26 employees across offices in Tel Aviv, London, and Paris. So far, 40 banks and 17 fund managers have been onboarded, with a notional of over USD 1 trillion matched to date.

About DB1 Ventures:

DB1 Ventures is the corporate venture capital arm of Deutsche Börse Group. Its vision is to be a strategic partner of choice for early-stage to growth-stage companies which are core or adjacent to Deutsche Börse Group’s strategy, generate attractive investment returns and add strategic value to its growth plans.

As an international exchange organisation and innovative market infrastructure provider, Deutsche Börse Group ensures markets characterised by integrity, transparency and stability. With its wide range of products, services and technologies, the Group organises safe and efficient markets for sustainable economies. Its business areas extend along the entire value chain in exchange trading, including the admission, trading and clearing, and custody of securities and other financial instruments, the dissemination of market data, as well as the management of collateral and liquidity. As a technology company, the Group develops state-of-the-art IT solutions and offers IT systems all over the world.

With more than 9,000 employees, the Group has its headquarters in the financial centre of Frankfurt/Rhine-Main, as well as a strong global presence in locations such as Luxembourg, Prague, London, New York, Chicago, Hong Kong, Singapore, Beijing, Tokyo and Sydney.

About WeMatch:

WeMatch is a fintech company focussing on capital markets that helps financial institutions transition liquidity to an orderly electronic service, improving productivity and de-risking the process of voice interaction. Wematch licenses its technology to regulated entities to help traders find liquidity, negotiate, trade, optimise and manage the lifecycle of their portfolios of assets and trade structures. They are focused on structured products such as Securities Financing, OTC equity derivatives and OTC cleared interest rates derivatives.

About Augmentum Fintech:

Augmentum invests in fast growing fintech businesses that are disrupting the financial services sector. Augmentum is the UK’s only publicly listed investment company focusing on the fintech sector in the UK and wider Europe, having launched on the main market of the London Stock Exchange in 2018, giving businesses access to patient capital and support, unrestricted by conventional fund timelines and giving public markets investors access to a largely privately held investment sector during its main period of growth.

About Illuminate Financial:

Illuminate Financial is a thesis-driven venture capital firm dedicated to enterprise fintech and B2B software companies building technology solutions for financial services. With offices in London, New York and Singapore, the team’s deep domain expertise and best-in-class industry networks make them the trusted partner of choice for ambitious start-ups and financial institutions.