Augmentum Fintech has invested £2.6 million in LoopFX following its latest funding round, making it the first institutional investor in the company. Tim Johnson, co-founder and chief operating officer, spoke to Global Trading to share further details of the partnership and to hint at what is yet to come.
“From the first day we began discussing working together, our respective teams shared a synergy and a professional working relationship that felt like they had been with LoopFX since the beginning,” Tim Johnson, co-founder and chief operating officer, told Global Trading.
Augmentum, a publicly-listed, UK-based investment company, has previously backed businesses including Tide, Interactive Investor and Zopa Bank. Its CEO, Tim Levene, will join the LoopFX board, chaired by John Sievwright.
“This investment is a tremendous endorsement of our mission and LoopFX’s future potential,” Johnson continued. “It paves the way for us to accelerate our growth as we continue building a new protocol in FX, which we believe will become an essential part of every trader’s toolkit.”
LoopFX is an independent venue for large spot FX trades. It offers peer-to-bank matching, which allows traders to match with asset managers and banks in real-time without risk of information leakage. Asset managers are able to access LoopFX through existing workflows and collaborations with platforms such as FX Connect, while banks are paid for liquidity matched through the service.
“If a match is found in the Loop, execution costs are reduced. If no match is found, best execution processes are improved simply by checking the Loop,” Johnson explained. “And by keeping banks central to matching in LoopFX, the FX ecosystem is respected and improved for all.”
The technology was integrated into State Street’s FX Connect in September 2023, and became a part of FactSet’s Portware in January 2024.
“For our clients, we have always looked to solutions led by practitioners,” Johnson said. “Our market-neutral position as neither a buy side nor a sell side institution gives us a unique reach and openness with our clients, whom we speak with daily. Our success lies in working with, not against, these institutions to collaboratively build effective solutions.”
As for what comes next, “I can share that we will be announcing our signature to the FX Global Code,” Johnson shared. “We are happy to do so as we develop innovative new ways of improving the transparency, robustness, and efficiency of managing FX trades. The FX Global Code has been central to our thinking.”
Commenting on the announcement, LoopFX CEO and co-founder Blair Hawthorne said: “Augmentum’s experience and network will be strategically vital for LoopFX as we move towards launch. And their investment will allow us to build our team and accelerate our capability to meet the needs of our customers. As our first institutional investor, Augmentum will join the ranks of other world-class collaborators.”
Tim Levene, founder and CEO of Augmentum Fintech, added: “We are increasingly focusing on the opportunity in the capital markets space where we see a trend of incumbents opting to collaborate and partner with innovative early-stage companies.
“We believe LoopFX offers a textbook example of a fintech operating in the capital markets in partnership with blue chip financial institutions. LoopFX brings efficiencies in trading and price discovery to the FX market which in turn will help participants comply with MiFID II’s best execution trading regime.”
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