London-based startup Finbourne has secured £55 million ($70 million) in funding to expand its platform for helping financial companies organize and utilize their data in AI and other models. Co-led by Highland Europe and AXA Venture Partners (AVP), the funding round values the company at over £280 million ($356 million) post-money. Finbourne’s CEO, Thomas McHugh, came up with the idea for the startup after working as a senior quant at the Royal Bank of Scotland during the 2008 financial crisis. The crisis prompted a reorganization within the bank, and McHugh and his team built technology that consolidated and federated data across multiple asset classes. This experience led to the creation of Finbourne, which aims to provide tools for financial services companies to run their operations more efficiently and work with outside companies rather than building their own software. The company’s products include operational data storage, investment and accounting books of record, portfolio management platforms, and data virtualization tools. Finbourne is also exploring how to manage data for training AI models. The company faces competition from various asset management and asset service providers, but its platform’s ability to integrate investment data from multiple sources into a single platform sets it apart. The funding will allow Finbourne to expand its reach beyond London’s financial center and continue its mission of enabling financial institutions to transition from legacy siloed solutions to a modern data architecture for real-time visibility and optimal decision-making.
