Digital Debt Capital Markets has closed a second round of funding, raising £4.32m from a group that includes fintech entrepreneur David Rutter and Michael Spencer's private investment group IPGL.
The fintech firm is building a platform called agora that its co-founders - debt market veterans Charlie Berman and Naveed Nasar - say will cut the costs of producing bond new issues. DDCM raised £2.5m a year ago in seed funding that included Spencer - former owner of NEX Group (previously ICAP).
DDCM said it has made significant headway over the past year in developing end-to-end digital support for the entire life cycle of a bond, working to connect agora with issuers, underwriting banks, custodians, central securities depositories, issuing and paying agents.
It said it has completed in-house testing and initial development of first phase software and is now completing the necessary technology.
Rutter is founder and chief executive of R3, which is behind Corda Enterprise, the blockchain software integral to agora. He recently unveiled LedgerEdge, his latest venture after he sold LiquidityEdge – a US Treasury trading platform – to MarketAxess last year for US$150m.