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Xignite, Inc., the leading financial market data cloud provider, today announced that it has secured $10 million in Series B funding from StarVest Partners, L.P. and John L. "Launny" Steffens of Spring Mountain Capital and former vice chairman of Merrill Lynch. The equity financing, which also included participation from previous investors Altos Ventures, Startup Ventures and Peter Caswell, will be used to support the company’s rapid growth through expansion of sales and marketing operations and extension of the Xignite market data cloud platform.
Xignite Market Data Cloud Bridges the Financial Data – App Explosion Gap
Financial markets are generating exponentially increasing amounts of market data due to high-frequency trading, venue fragmentation, and an ever expanding pool of financial instruments. In turn, financial services IT departments are being crushed between these record-level volumes of market data and the need to deliver it to a rapidly growing and increasingly mobile set of applications. The Xignite market data cloud platform allows firms to push this big data to the cloud where it is available globally, on-demand to any application with an Internet connection, allowing IT departments to focus on building the next generation of apps, instead of managing mountains of data.
"Every day financial markets generate one-hundred times more data than they did just five years ago," said Stephane Dubois, CEO and founder of Xignite. "At the same time, the one-size-fits-all terminal model is breaking down as businesses drive productivity through simpler, nimbler fit-for-purpose apps. Cloud-based market data is the only solution that can bridge this gap."
Transforming the Way Firms Buy, Sell and Consume Financial Market Data
"The Xignite cloud platform has the potential to create a seismic shift in the way financial services firms buy, sell and consume the core market data required to run their businesses," said Deborah Farrington, co-founder and general partner, StarVest Partners, L.P. who led the investment round for StarVest and has joined Xignite’s board of directors. "Xignite aligns perfectly with StarVest’s investment strategy: to seek out companies with innovative business models and experienced management teams that create disruptive technologies to solve real business problems."
The Xignite market data cloud platform transforms market data infrastructure into a utility just like electricity. Businesses can buy online and plug applications into the Xignite market data cloud in minutes. Exchanges and trading venues that put their market data onto the XigniteOnDemand private-label platform, such as NASDAQ OMX and CME Group, achieve immediate, global distribution through new online channels and superior market transparency as demanded by many of the new regulations resulting from the recent financial crisis.
"Xignite puts professional-grade, big market data in everyone’s hands, leveling the playing field and bringing stronger transparency to the financial services industry," said Launny Steffens. "The cloud democratizes access to financial information for the little guys, while dramatically lowering the data management and delivery infrastructure costs for large banks, hedge funds and money managers."
