Fintech Startup Capitolis Secures $40 Million in Financing

Fintech company Capitolis has completed a $40 million Series B funding round led by Spark Capital and SVB Capital. Existing investors, Index Ventures, Sequoia Capital and S Capital also participated in the round, bringing the total capital raised to date to $70 million.

The investment will support Capitolis’ next phase of rapid growth, including the expansion of its technology platform, functionality and product offering.

Capitolis has a vision of efficient and safe global markets, achieved by connecting participants through a technology platform to provide maximum capital efficiency and optimisation. By utilising proprietary technology, Capitolis has developed a platform through which financial institutions are able to collaborate, reduce capital utilisation, and find the most attractive sources of capital, resulting in higher returns on capital and greater liquidity in global markets.

Capitolis was founded in 2016 by Gil Mandelzis, the founder of Sequoia-backed fintech company Traiana (acquired by ICAP) and former CEO of EBS BrokerTec, the electronic markets of division of ICAP plc (now CME Group plc), Tom Glocer, former CEO of Thomson Reuters and Igor Teleshevsky, formerly Executive VP and Head of Technology at Traiana. The company currently has 55 employees in New York City, London and Tel Aviv.

As part of the investment, Jeremy Philips, Partner at Spark Capital, focusing on growth investments, will join the Capitolis board. Jeremy has spent most of his career as an entrepreneur.

Since the introduction of its proprietary platform, Capitolis now has over 50 financial institutions live on its system, that have recorded transaction volumes of USD1.5 trillion notional. In 2019 alone, notional transaction volumes have increased by 25x since last year.

The business now has a range of products available to its customers, including;

• Novations: Capitolis’ ground-breaking platform that allows users to optimise their positions, view and change their desired parameters and execute resulting optimisations.
• Marketplace: Capitolis Marketplace provides clients real-time capability to find through technology the cheapest and most appropriate partner to hold positions executed elsewhere.
• Finance: Capitolis Finance helps institutions create new positions to facilitate significant balance sheet efficiencies, while simultaneously providing access to new short-term positions that investors can use for effective cash management, leveraging state of the art workflow technology. 

Gil Mandelzis, CEO of Capitolis, says: “In less than a year, Capitolis’ platform has been adopted by many of the world’s leading banks and hedge funds and is creating very meaningful resource benefits. Capitolis’ technology has already eliminated trillions of dollars of transactions notional to date, and with the new investments from Spark and SVB Capital, development is underway to expand the functionality and platform further. With our exceptional and growing team and strong appetite for our solutions, we are confident that our technology will be further adopted by institutions around the world.”

Tom Glocer, Executive Chairman of Capitolis, says: “It is very gratifying to us that some of the world’s most successful investors have chosen to back our vision for safer, more efficient and more profitable capital markets leveraging Capitolis technology. We now have the funding, the management team, and the core customer adoption to grow Capitolis into a major industry infrastructure and force.”

Jeremy Philips, Partner at Spark Capital, says: “The passion and energy that Gil, Tom, and the team bring to transforming the way that capital markets operate are what first caught our attention. Capitolis is on a multi-trillion dollar mission to reduce risk in the global financial system while improving returns. We are privileged to partner with them on this exciting journey.”

Tilli Kalisky-Bannett, Partner at SVB Capital, says: “It is the nature of capital markets to constantly innovate, but it is exciting to find businesses that can make such a fundamental leap in how participants interact and improve the management of their portfolios. Gil and the Capitolis team have the potential to unlock intrinsic value at all stages of the financial ecosystem through their innovative technology.”

Jan Hammer, Partner at Index Ventures, says: “Capitolis has developed a marketplace for institutional capital where supply and demand meet. By connecting all the parties in the market more efficiently, Capitolis removes bottlenecks that are limiting the flow of capital. The response from leading banks and other financial players has shown a growing need for such a platform, and we're excited to continue to support the team as they scale.”

Haim Sadger, Partner at Sequoia Capital and Founder of S Capital VC, says: “To transform a whole industry, you need to have a bold vision and serious dedication. Gil has both of those and more. We are thrilled to be backing him again and to be working alongside such a great team of innovators.”