London Stock Exchange leads £15 million investment in start-up Nivaura

Fintech start-up Nivaura has raised 20 million dollars (£15 million) in a funding round led by the London Stock Exchange Group to expand its headcount.

Santander InnoVentures, the Spanish banking giant’s investment arm, law firms Allen & Overy and Linklaters and Transamerica Ventures, a subsidiary of insurer Aegon, also participated in the funding round, amongst others.

Nivaura, founded in 2016, automates the back-office processes for issuing debt and equity and provides digital investment banking platforms for banks and other financial firms.

The company said the funds raised will be used to “rapidly expand its leadership, business development and technical teams in order to accelerate growth”.

Nivaura also plans to enter new markets and cover other financial securities.

Following the investment round, Nikhil Rathi, chief executive of London Stock Exchange PLC and director of international development at the London Stock Exchange Group, is to join Nivaura’s board along with HSBC investment banking veteran Spencer Lake.

Richard Cohen, a senior debt capital markets lawyer, is to move from Allen & Overy to be Nivaura’s general counsel and head of strategy.

Nivaura’s boss Avtar Sehra said: “Our focus for 2019 is on conducting a series of high profile, large-scale projects with high calibre partners to demonstrate our platform as a valuable solution across the full spectrum of capital markets primary issuance activities. Working with such partners with their wealth of experience will underpin our next phase of growth.”

He added: “We’re seeing growing appetite from major financial institutions for practical innovation that goes beyond buzzwords and conceptual PoCs (proof of concepts) in ‘digital investment banking’.

“Boards are saying: go forth and innovate.

“But doing so in the highly regulated and complex world of capital markets is immensely difficult. With our now proven approach and compliance credentials, we are able to finally help our industry take practical steps to innovate and improve their economics.”