Retail brokerage BUX announced on Wednesday that it has raised $12.5 million in funding.
That money will be put towards acquiring Ayondo Markets Limited (AML), the UK-regulated subsidiary of brokerage giant Ayondo.
The money that BUX raised came predominantly from venture capital firms Velocity Capital and Holtzbrinck Ventures.
"The future of investing is changing and BUX is uniquely positioned to shape the neo-brokerage space in Europe," said Willem Willemstein, investment partner at Velocity Capital.
“The fintechs that will succeed in this environment will be those who are able to specialise, localise and adapt to the varied cultural needs of the European landscape."
Backend acquisition
This latest Funding Round means that Amsterdam-based BUX has now raised a total of $35 million.
The broker’s interest in acquiring AML was first announced in February of this year, though there was no definite indication that the deal would go through.
AML and BUX have already been working together for several years. The UK broker has been supplying all of the backend operations to BUX’s Trading Platform .
The deal to acquire AML also marks the first time that BUX has taken over another firm since its founding in 2014.
Current clients of AML will continue to be served once the acquisition is complete. In a statement issued on Wednesday, BUX said this is likely to increase its annual revenue by 50 percent.
“[The AML acquisition] gives BUX control over the full value chain including a full brokerage license, back-end technology and operations.” said Nick Bortot, CEO and founder of BUX.
“It will take away any external dependencies and allow us to serve our customers even better and make it easier to introduce new features more quickly.”
Free stocks
Wednesday’s fundraising round will also allow Bortot’s firm to bolster the STOCKS application.
Akin to Robinhood in the US, STOCKS will provide clients with commission-free equities trading.
The service currently has a 100,000 person-long waiting list and is set to launch in July of this year.
