HgCapital injects undisclosed sum into fundinfo

HgCapital announced a significant investment in fundinfo on Thursday, which it described as a leading technology platform for fund data and documents publication and dissemination to the global fund industry, headquartered in Zurich.

The company said it will partner with the existing directors of fundinfo - Michael Partin, Philipp Portmann, Jan Giller, Daniel Walter, Matthias Weber and Jochen Gutbrod - to accelerate the development of the business.

Fundinfo, which was founded in 2005, facilitates the publication and dissemination of fund data and documents between asset managers and distributors of funds.

HgCapital said it has more than 500 asset management clients, and a network of over 100 distribution partners across Europe and Asia, enabling over 19 million documents to be made available to the fund industry in a compliant and visible way.

Its partner business, ifund services, is a specialist in fund research and is currently rolling out an automated ‘robo-advice’ offering for fund selection, HgCapital’s board said.

Going forward, the two companies said they will continue working together and leverage more of each other's knowledge and unique positioning in their respective markets.

HgCapital's investment will allow the fundinfo business to continue its expansion into new fund jurisdictions, the further development of fundinfo's analytics offering, and to support the global roll-out of the ‘openfunds’ format for fund data standardisation.

Fundinfo will join HgCapital's current network of European headquartered FinTech investments, including Intelliflo, Ullink and Sequel.

As part of the transaction, Peter Little will join fundinfo as chairman.

The terms of this transaction were not disclosed, and completion remained subject to FINMA approval.

“The fundinfo team have built a uniquely attractive proposition to asset managers and fund distributors, in enabling the automated distribution of accurate fund documents and data, a task of growing complexity and cost for the industry,” said Sebastien Briens, a partner in the HgCapital Mercury team.

“We are excited to back the team to drive further innovation in the sector, and notably to support the openfunds format making it a global standard.”

Philipp Portmann, CEO of fundinfo, said his company believes that HgCapital will be an excellent partner to allow fundinfo to expand the reach and depth of its network.

“Their experience in scaling software businesses and insight into the broader financial services landscape will be of great relevance to our company.

“We believe that this partnership will bring significant benefits to our clients as we continue to expand internationally and invest in our unique service offering.”