Capitolis, the pioneering technology provider for the capital markets, announced today that it has launched a groundbreaking novation service in foreign exchange (FX). Citi, HSBC, BlueCrest and Brevan Howard, among many other market participants, have collaborated with Capitolis on this service, which is the first of its kind in FX.

Capitolis Novations automates the currently manual workflow in both FX prime broking and bilateral trading, thus providing capital efficiencies for the FX market. The service helps mitigate against costs and inefficiencies linked to the manual process of novation that banks currently employ to meet their regulatory capital requirements as well as managing client credit capacity.

With this service, Capitolis automates the novation process for all market participants, including prime brokers, executing banks, hedge funds and real money managers, for all FX instruments including options, swaps, forwards and Non-Deliverable Forwards (NDFs). The solution is currently being tested and is expected to go live in the next few weeks.

In March 2018, the company announced that it had secured funding from Sequoia Capital and Index Ventures in a seed and Series A round in which it raised $29 million. Capitolis was founded by ex-ICAP (now NEX Group) executive Gil Mandelzis, ex-Thomson Reuters CEO Tom Glocer and Igor Teleshevksy, formerly of Traiana.

Gil Mandelzis, CEO of Capitolis said: “Over the past few months we’ve been working with major market participants on developing an industry solution for novations. We are grateful to the strong support our solution has received from prime brokers, executing banks and leading buy side firms. We are looking forward to going live with the solution in the next few weeks and will roll out significant further functionality throughout this year.”

Sanjay Madgavkar, Global Head of FX Prime Brokerage at Citi, said: “Capitolis is focused on innovative ideas which will help prime brokers and their clients. We are delighted to be engaged in new and creative products to help the prime brokerage industry move forward in the right direction.”

Vincent Bonamy, Head of Global Intermediary Services at HSBC said: “Our key focus as a leading FX house is to provide the best level of client service possible. This partnership opens a new way to increase the quality and efficiency of our offerings in terms of transparency and automation.”

Bevan Kaminer, COO at Brevan Howard, said: “We support the efforts of Capitolis in improving standards of practice in the FX novation market, notably in terms of the efficiency savings this can bring to buy-side firms, and look forward to our continued collaboration.”

Paul Lawrence, Operations Manager at BlueCrest, said: “The Capitolis option novation solution is a positive step forward in terms of bringing a level of standardisation and efficiency to a traditionally operationally intensive process. They have been swift in designing a collaborative tool which will ultimately benefit the whole FXPB ecosystem.”

Capitolis, the pioneering technology provider for the capital markets, announces today it is live with its foreign exchange credit switching service, Capitolis Switch.

Capitolis’ mission is to address capital markets constraints in the financial system. With the launch of Capitolis Switch, a key credit issue is addressed, enabling the unbundling of execution, processing, capital and risk in foreign exchange prime broking.

Large global systemically important banks currently provide best in class execution and processing, bundled with credit to clients. With Capitolis Switch the provision of credit is expanded to include a much broader universe of banks and investors. It allows the large banks to maximise their prime brokerage infrastructure capability and their substantial networks. For credit providers, this is an opportunity to work with new clients while utilizing the scale of processing via the coupled technology of deal processors and Capitolis. The solution effectively brings all of these parties together, for the benefit of the whole market.

Gil Mandelzis, CEO of Capitolis, said: “We are excited to be live with Capitolis Switch and to be working with institutions of the calibre of Citi, Jefferies and FXCM who have demonstrated their innovative thinking in partnering with us to bring this service to the financial markets. This is a completely new approach to the provision of credit in capital markets transactions. We believe it is the first and important step in Capitolis’ vision to better connect appropriate capital with collaborative technology solutions to accelerate growth and enhance economic performance for all involved.”

“We welcome technology developments that enable new flexible credit models which strengthen our FX prime brokerage service.” said Sanjay Madgavkar, Managing Director and Global Head of FX Prime Brokerage at Citi. “We’re excited by the potential of Capitolis to drive change and are pleased to offer this solution to our clients.”

“Jefferies is committed to making innovative technology available to its clients, and we are thrilled to be a first mover credit provider on the Capitolis platform”, said Brandon Mulvihill, Global Head of FX Prime Brokerage at Jefferies. “Capitolis provides us yet another tool to add strategic value to our clients.”

Brendan Callan, CEO of FXCM Group, said: ‘FXCM has been at the forefront of offering cutting edge trading tools for clients for many years. With this new partnership with Capitolis, we foresee many benefits for liquidity enhancement by the expansion of the credit provision model.”

Capitolis, the pioneering technology provider for the capital markets, today announces that its CEO and Founder, Gil Mandelzis, has been appointed non-executive director of Euronext US Inc.

Capitolis was founded in 2017 by Gil Mandelzis, the former CEO of EBS BrokerTec, part of ICAP plc (now NEX Group plc) and founder of Traiana (acquired by ICAP), Tom Glocer, former CEO of Thomson Reuters and Igor Teleshevsky, formerly Executive VP and Head of Technology at Traiana.

In February 2018, the company announced that it had secured funding from Sequoia Capital and Index Ventures in a seed and Series A round in which it raised $29 million.

Stéphane Boujnah, CEO and Chairman of the Managing Board of Euronext N.V., said: “The experience of Gil Mandelzis, our new non-executive director of Euronext US Inc., will be a major asset for our Group. As a successful serial entrepreneur in the field of capital markets platforms, Gil will further strengthen our positioning in the United States and our ambition to diversify the revenues of Euronext over the coming years”.

Gil Mandelzis, CEO of Capitolis said: “Euronext is ideally positioned to grow and play a role in the future development of both US and European markets. The pace of change in market structure and as well as new technology and trading solutions has accelerated and I look forward to supporting Stéphane and the Euronext team in leading the market through these changes.”

Capitolis, the pioneering technology provider for the capital markets today announces two rounds of financing, a Series A investment of $20 million led by Index Ventures, and a prior $9 million Seed round led by Sequoia Capital.

Capitolis was founded in 2017 by Gil Mandelzis, the former CEO of EBS BrokerTec, part of ICAP plc (now NEX Group plc) and Founder of Sequoia-backed Traiana (acquired by ICAP), Tom Glocer, former CEO of Thomson Reuters and Igor Teleshevsky, formerly Executive VP and Head of Technology at Traiana. The company currently has 25 employees in New York City, London and Tel Aviv and is actively growing its team.

Capitolis is designing multiple new products and services to address capital markets constraints, initially in equities and foreign exchange. It will employ Capitolis’ proven expertise in finance, distribution and processing to better connect appropriate capital with the best collaborative solutions to clients all over the world. The company will announce its initial services and products later this year.

Gil Mandelzis, CEO of Capitolis said: “We believe there is a significant and untapped opportunity to better distribute capital through the system which can be unlocked by the appropriate products, skills, experience and focus that Capitolis brings. We have seen a very positive response from our partner banks, institutional investors and clients who understand the benefits of the approach that we are leading. And we have assembled an extraordinarily capable team with a range of skills and talents to help achieve this.”

“Sequoia Capital and Index Ventures have been supportive partners who work with ambitious entrepreneurs, understand technology disruption and most importantly our vision. We’re grateful for their investment which will enable us to further develop our product offering and strengthen our resources to take Capitolis to the next stage in its strategic ambition,” said Gil Mandelzis.

Among those joining Mr. Mandelzis as part of Capitolis’ management team are several executives with decades of experience in financial services including Justin Klug, formerly of Credit Suisse and Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Joseph Tarditi, former Managing Director and Head of US Short Rate Sales at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, and David Lamb, formerly of Morgan Stanley and Citi. The management team also includes financial technology veterans Illit Geller, formerly co-founder and CEO of TradAir and Head of Business Development at Traiana and Ben Tobin, formerly EMEA Sales Director at EBS BrokerTec and previously also at Traiana.

Tom Glocer, Executive Chairman of Capitolis said: “In my long experience in financial markets it is rare to find a company that solves both a focused set of complex capital markets problems and at the same time presents a substantial long-term growth opportunity. We have assembled an exceptional team who bring the perfect capital markets, technology and start-up experience to deliver on this ambition.”

“Capitolis has a bold vision, rethinking the way markets operate,” said Jan Hammer, partner at Index Ventures, a venture capital firm that has backed leading fintech firms including Adyen, Funding Circle, Robinhood and TransferWise. “Capitolis has the potential to have a lasting positive impact on the capital markets, increasing the availability of financing while reducing the associated cost.”

“Gil is the type of founder who can transform industries, and we’re thrilled to be in business with him again,” said Haim Sadger, partner at Sequoia Capital and Capitolis board member, who also invested in Gil’s previous company, Traiana. “We believe Gil’s vision for Capitolis can reshape the capital markets and unlock huge potential.”