Fixed income is the world's largest asset class, but the industry runs on infrastructure far behind the state of the art.
I witnessed this first hand growing up, as my father was a bond portfolio manager. Even a kid at “bring your child to work day” could wonder why stocks were bought in a few clicks online, while bonds were purchased through an opaque and expensive negotiation between traders. And that's not to mention the numerous times my dad dealt with sneaky terms slipped into covenants, unnecessary slippage on trades, and data availability problems plaguing the industry.
Despite a disjointed and archaic set of systems that currently trade fixed income, the need for digital platforms is stronger than ever: in 2011, just 10% of investment-grade corporate bond volume was traded electronically, while today over 40% is.*
Skyrocketing demand for a product paired with infrastructure that grows increasingly ancient with every passing day is a recipe for revolution. This is why we we're so excited to back the Moment team.
Moment has built modern APIs enabling financial firms to deliver a complete fixed income solution to their clients — including automated best execution across every source of liquidity, comprehensive reference and market data, and custom fixed income strategies with automated portfolio construction and management.
They have begun rolling out the Moment platform to over 220 broker-dealer clients with their first client, Apex Fintech Solutions — the global leader in clearing and custody for fintechs, representing over $120 billion in assets under custody. Apex powers award-winning brokerages and investing platforms such as Public and Titan, in total covering more than 24 million investors across the globe.
But most important to us is the Moment team. We first met them years ago as undergrads at Harvard. Being quite impressed by their clarity of mind and ambition from the start, we were delighted when they finally decided to start a company, and quickly moved to invest.
Today, we're announcing that Moment has raised over $20M in funding, including a Seed round led by Contrary and a Series A led by Andreessen Horowitz.
Fixed income is what makes the world go round — for companies, governments big and small, and individuals taking on loans — so we're honored to play a small role in building better markets and data products for all.
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Sources:
* https://www.ft.com/content/d07b8753-566d-4cad-98bc-4290e2b92ae5
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