London fintech PrimaryBid has landed a US$190mln Series C funding round, led by Softbank, as it seeks to expand internationally.
Proceeds of the funding are earmarked to expand in Europe and the United States.
It comes after the digital platform, which allows companies to reach retail investors for IPOs and placings, participated in 150 equity sales in the past eighteen months and rapidly grown in stature.
The US$190mln investment round reportedly valued PrimaryBid at around US$700mln.
Previously, in October 2020, PrimaryBid raised US$50mln in a Series B funding round which brought in the London Stock Exchange and other investors including Molten Ventures, OMERS, Fidelity, ABN AMRO, Outward VC, Pentech and Hambo Perks.
Since 2020, the company has become fully regulated in the European Union and more recently, in June 2021, it launched in France.
Sir Donald Brydon - whose career includes senior executive management positions at Barclays, AXA and Royal Mail - was in September appointed as chairman.
A report in the Financial Times this morning noted that SoftBank’s Vision Fund 2, the vehicle that participated in the funding, is known to invest in start-ups that are a path to explore listings in coming years.
Other start-ups in the Vision Fund include Tik Tok parent ByteDance, celebrity video shout-out app Cameo, sports team merchandising app Fanatics, the Whoop fitness tracking app, along with fintech investments such as eToro, FTX, Klarna, M1 Finance, and Revolut.