A month and a half after ayondo announced the opening of its office in Singapore, they announced that it has obtained a second round of funding from Singapore-based private equity fund manager, Luminor Capital, to the tune of $4 million (5 million SGD).
Earlier this year the company announced its brand unification with parent company ayondo Holding AG, heading ayondo GmbH, which is behind the company’s social Trading Platform , while former spread betting and CFD brokerage, Gekko Global Markets, was rebranded to ayondo markets Ltd in June.
This is the second round of funding which the company is to receive this year, with an earlier tranche from Luminor Capital totaling $6.2 million. This move opens doors for the company to become a global player in social trading and CFD trading, as it has already announced its intentions to look for new partnerships in Asia.
In the course of their international expansion plans and the recent opening of a Singaporean office, the ayondo group announced today that it has received an additional SGD 5 million in funding from Singapore-based, Private Equity group Luminor Capital.
ayondo group’s CEO, Robert Lempka, stated in the company announcement, “The funds will enable us to implement our global B2B strategy as well as our Asia growth strategy. We continue to receive strong interest in our products from all over the world and we are very excited to be able to grow our partnership portfolio significantly.”
Managing Director of Luminor Capital, Dr Foo Fatt Kah, added, “We believe that Social Trading will be one of the key online financial services platforms of the future and ayondo is very well positioned to be one of the leaders in this field. The company has a dynamic and forward-looking management team and we are particularly excited about what we can achieve together in Asia."
The Social Trading Race
The social trading segment has been developing rapidly with a slew of companies getting into the space to deliver their own solution. After securing additional funding in January, social trading operator Tradeo became a standalone brokerage, going live in May.
FCA regulated investment adviser, TradeSlide, was operating a social trading platform under its brand name. In May it made a strategic decision to become a brokerage and rebranded as Darwinex, adding a brokerage license and continuing to provide investment manager services.
At the end of 2013, UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) ) sent out a letter to certain social trading platform providers regarding future regulatory requirements that may be imposed on such trading methods.
