OMG (Openmarkets Group) extends pre-IPO to $17.8m due to record growth, and acquires Cannon Trading
Trading and wealth management infrastructure fintech OMG has extended its pre-IPO raise to $17.8 million to support continued record growth.
The majority of funds were derived from sophisticated investor clients of OMG’s B2B arm, Openmarkets, and its retail trading product, Opentrader, and the remainder from existing investors.
This level of demand from investment professionals, whose fingers are firmly on the pulse of capital markets, indicates strong confidence in OMG’s ability to provide the markets infrastructure for Australia’s best investment professionals and trading companies.
OMG has also entered into a sale agreement for the acquisition of equities markets-specialist tech & API developer, Cannon Trading, which is pivotal to the achievement of OMG’s vision of integration and open architecture. The transaction valued Cannon at $12.5m.
The acquisition will take OMG from a 40 percent to 100 percent ownership stake in Cannon, in a move that will significantly shore up OMG’s technology stack through Cannon’s market-leading APIs. It also secures OMG’s relationships with Cannon customers such as SelfWealth and Six Park, consolidating OMG’s market leadership in the open API and trading infrastructure sector.
In addition to the new best-of-breed APIs acquired via Cannon, OMG also recently upgraded its back-office system for both domestic and international markets via global fintech GBST, delivered as a managed cloud solution. Its clients include top tier global investment banks and major Australian retail banks. More than 60 percent of all ASX trading activity is processed through GBST’s systems.
As a result, OMG’s tech stack now extends from KYC and onboarding, to CRM, managed accounts, and order and risk management and execution, with global capabilities.
In the past month OMG also made a number of senior appointments, including former UBS Managing Director, Michael Fagan (OMG’s new Derivatives Specialist) and Klass Raajmakers who is currently Head of Product at Stan, was previously Chief Product Officer at B2B scaleup Deputy, and will shortly be joining as OMG’s Chief Product Officer.
OMG also hired a selection of former senior Pershing staff, including Scott Anderson (Head of Relationships), Phil de Hennin (Head of Equity Finance), Steven Graham (Equities Operations Manager), and Ian Tran (Head of Execution).
The capital injection combined with the acquisition, back-office technology upgrade, and senior management hires will all support OMG’s ability to service record growth experienced throughout 2021, which it expects to continue into 2022.
Ivan Tchourilov, CEO of OMG, said, “We decided to extend our pre-IPO due to continued record growth in trading volume, customers, and revenue throughout 2021.
“This additional growth capital is a clear demonstration of the continued support we are receiving from the capital markets, and the belief in our ability to build massive value for our shareholders and clients.
“Our provision of robust and globally-scalable trading and wealth management infrastructure tech allows us to more cost-effectively connect fintechs to markets, and intermediaries not just to markets but a range of integrated data and technology solutions to optimise their businesses.
“This will ultimately allow us to connect global consumers to affordable and specialist investing solutions by linking them into our marketplace, OMG’s wealth ecosystem.”
