BMLL, a provider of historical financial market data and analytics, has secured $21 million in the latest investment round led by global market maker Optiver. This latest financing follows BMLL’s $26 million Series B round almost two years ago.

BMLL Raises $21 Million in Strategic Investment Led by Optiver

The company has added over 40 equities and futures datasets worldwide during the last 18 months, now covering 98% of the MSCI All Country World Index. BMLL's data and analytics, which span more than 100 global trading venues, are utilized by a diverse range of market participants, brokers, and regulators.

"We have an incredibly diverse team of supporting investors, with deep-seated global market and technology expertise, and we are poised to scale the business further as we build out and scale our data feed business and futures coverage and wider product offering globally,” commented Paul Humphrey, the CEO of BMLL.

The funding round also saw participation from existing investors FactSet, Nasdaq Ventures, and IQ Capital's Growth Fund, with CTC Venture Capital joining as a new investor.

As part of the investment, Optiver will integrate BMLL's historical Level 3, 2, and 1 data into its trading operations, using it to enhance algorithm development, execution analysis, and market surveillance.

“The high quality of BMLL's data, their advanced analytics tools and their best-in-class team have together significantly improved our ability to generate insights that influence our strategies,” Pat Cooney, Managing Director of Optiver Europe, commented. “We believe these benefits can extend beyond our firm and provide substantial value to other market participants as well."

The investment underscores a growing trend in the financial industry towards a "buy-to-build" model for market data infrastructure. Rather than developing and maintaining their own historical data capabilities, firms are increasingly turning to specialized providers like BMLL for ready-to-use data sets.

This latest funding round follows BMLL's $26 million Series B round in October 2022, which included investments from FactSet, Nasdaq Ventures, and IQ Capital's Growth Fund. Snowflake Ventures later joined that round in September 2023.

BMLL's Recent Partnerships and Data Initiatives

BMLL has been actively expanding its partnerships and data offerings throughout the year. In June, the company announced a partnership with INQDATA, a cloud-based data solutions provider. This collaboration enables financial market participants to access BMLL's extensive historical market data within their kdb+ environment.

Earlier in the year, BMLL joined forces with CCData, an FCA-authorized benchmark administrator specializing in digital asset data solutions and settlement indices. This partnership aims to streamline access to data across both traditional and digital asset markets, providing users with a more comprehensive view of the financial landscape.

In January, BMLL completed the first phase of its program to improve customer access to datasets. The company made three datasets available via the Snowflake Marketplace, allowing customers to access and analyze BMLL's data easily.