Avaloq is setting up a venture fund to invest in budding technology start-ups. The banking software firm is enlisting prominent finance and media experts for the investment arm.
The Zurich-based company is launching a venture capital funding arm to invest in financial start-up firms, it said in a statement on Tuesday. Avaloq didn't say how much it would allot to the fund.
The venture will be run by Minho Roth, a well-known former proprietary trader-turned-hedge fund investor who runs FiveT, the Swiss-based wealth and alternative asset manager he founded.
The moves comes as Avaloq marches towards an initial public offering, after private equity investor Warburg Pincus took a 45 stake in the company last year. Since then, founder Francisco Fernandez has relinquished the CEO spot to an industry veteran and the company has «grown up», focusing more on following through on what it starts.
Media, Banking Experts
Fernandez will chair the venture arm. Lex Fenwick, who ran news and data provider Bloomberg for more than ten years and spent two years as CEO of Dow Jones, which publishes «The Wall Street Journal», is joining the board.
Other directors include Philipp Sandner, head of a Frankfurt blockchain educational institute, and James Stickland, an ex-HSBC and J.P. Morgan banker. The venture arm will enable funding for fintechs by offering access to a software exchange platform for start-ups and established finance institutions.
Overlap with Parent?
It is unclear how Avaloq will manage the overlap between traditional mergers-and-acquisitions at the corporate level with its start-up investing (the company simply said it would keep looking for M&A deals, while also financing fintech funding). This April, Avaloq snapped up 10 percent of Metaco, a Lausanne-based blockchain and cryptocurrency storage firm.
«Avaloq Ventures will look to partner with third-party investors such as banks, wealth and asset managers, and established fintech companies in providing capital,» the company said. «The size of funding will be decided on a case-by-case basis.»
