Capzanine, a European equity firm, has made an undisclosed yet substantial investment on the Fintech firm Horizon Software. With this, the equity firm has become a majority shareholder of Horizon alongside its CEO and the management team.
Mentioning the investment, Sylvain Thieullent, Horizon’s CEO, commented: “The management team and I are convinced by Capzanine’s capacity to support the company in this exciting new developmental phase. We share a common goal, namely value creation through [a] strong commitment to delivering quality to clients. This alignment will allow Horizon to accelerate its growth while staying focused on its expertise.”
Horizon’s primary business is to provide electronic trading platforms to investment banks and other financial institutions. Moreover, the two-decade-old firm has expanded quite aggressively over the years. The firm handles 90 clients across 26 countries and is connected to over 70 exchanges.
Expanding footprint
Paris-headquartered Horizon is also pushing heavily for its expansion in the Americas and the APEC region. Last month, it announced the extension in the Indonesian market. It also has a firm grip on the Chinese financial market, and earlier this year, signed a deal with Holly Futures, a large-scale futures providers in China, to launch iron ore and grain futures contracts at Dalian Commodity Exchange (DCE). Moreover, it also partnered with Shenyin Wanguo Futures’ subsidiary company Shenyin Wanguo Fortune Investment Ltd.
“Horizon Software shows great promise; the management team aspires to expand in APAC and the Americas, develop new asset classes and reinforce its position in France. We are very happy to invest together with the management and support Horizon Software in this new development era,” Benoit Choppin, a partner at Capzanine, said.
Despite being closely tied with the traditional financial sector, horizon also dived in the crypto arena earlier in January. It introduced cryptocurrency trading through its native gateway, which connects several of the largest crypto exchanges, including Kraken, Bitstamp, Bitfinex, and GDAX.
