Edinburgh fintech secures £1.75m to double in size within six months 

A new business that provides corporate financiers with ‘fully verifiable data’ on private company valuations is set to double in size over the next six months, having secured new investment.

MarktoMarket, a Data-as-a-Service (DaaS) specialist based in Edinburgh, has raised £1.75 million in equity finance and secured an experienced non-executive director as it accelerates its goal of becoming the UK’s leading provider of data and insight into the private capital markets.

A consortium of investors – comprised of 24Haymarket, Techstart Ventures and Par Equity – has backed the firm in its latest funding round, alongside significant new commitments from existing shareholders, including the leaders of a FTSE250 IT Services business and professionals from investment banking, private equity and fund management.

Following the investment, Cahal Dowds of 24Haymarket, former vice chairman of Deloitte UK, head of Deloitte’s private markets business and chairman of its advisory corporate finance business, has joined the board as a non-executive director. 

MarktoMarket was founded in 2017 by Douglas Lawson, Martin Clarke and Bertie Wilson to address the paucity and inaccuracy of private market data available to advisers and investors. MarktoMarket’s platform uses machine learning and data analysts to collect, clean and make sense of data in opaque private markets. It counts some of the UK’s leading professional services and private equity firms amongst its current clients.

MarktoMarket, which employs 19 people at the UK’s largest technology incubator, Codebase, launched its “version 1” Valuations product in September 2018 and has already built a client base of more than 40 customers on subscription licences.  The new funds will be used to double the size of the team by hiring more talent to service MarktoMarket’s expanding customer base, take the company into new markets and progress the development of cutting-edge new technology and products being developed in conjunction with its customers. 

Douglas Lawson, CEO of MarktoMarket, said: “This funding from a seasoned consortium of investors is a great endorsement of the technical and commercial progress the team has made since founding the business. We have a relentless focus on customer need and a considerable pipeline of product opportunities that can be developed with the new funding we have now secured. This capital injection unlocks the next stage of our growth into new markets and I hope will help us cement our growing reputation as a must-have product for private capital market operators. ”

Cahal Dowds, non-executive director of MarktoMarket, said: “From my experience of working in private capital markets I was acutely aware of the inefficiencies and missed opportunities that come from operating with poor quality data.  MarktoMarket immediately resonated with me as a platform that could supercharge the industry’s effectiveness and I had no hesitation in both investing via the 24 Haymarket network and accepting a position on the board.”

Ian Gray, co-founder of 24 Haymarket, said: “Throughout my career in banking and private equity I did not see anything like MarktoMarket. It was clear from the first demonstration of the platform that the quality of data is second to none and it struck me as a must-have tool for corporate finance, tax and private equity practitioners.”

MarktoMarket was advised by David Wylie at Macroberts LLP; 24Haymarket and Par were advised by Rooney Nimmo; Techstart Ventures was advised by Tughans LLP.