Wells Fargo and Barclays have led a $17m (£13.3m) investment into New York fintech OpenFin, which builds desktop operating system (OS) products for the financial services industry.
The two banks were joined by previous investors Bain Capital Ventures, JP Morgan and Pivot Investment Partners in a Series C funding round, which brings OpenFin’s total venture funding to-date up to $40m (£31.3m).
The company will put the new capital towards expanding its reach and developing its cloud services product – which enables banks, asset managers, wealth managers and hedge funds to provide their own private app stores for employees and customers.
The aim is to create a software infrastructure used by financial services firms that is as modern and flexible as the consumer OS applications that run on smartphones, tablets and laptops.
OpenFin CEO and co-founder Mazy Dar said: “Apple and Google’s mobile operating systems and app stores have enabled more than a million apps that have fundamentally changed how we live.
“OpenFin OS and our new app store services enable the next generation of desktop apps that are transforming how we work in financial services.”
OpenFin wants to use investment to make its operating system ‘ubiquitous’ across financial services
Counting most major banks among its customers, OpenFin’s software currently runs more than 1,000 applications at more than 1,500 banks and buy-side firms globally, across 200,000 desktop computers.
The company wants to extend this reach, and tap into a lucrative digital transformation market in which legacy desktop software across financial services is being upgraded and modernised for use in client service centres, front office, operations, risk and compliance activities.
It says its OS enables finance companies to “build new applications with modern web technology while enabling seamless and secure integration with legacy applications”.
Matt Harris, partner at Bain Capital Ventures, said: “OpenFin is building the roads, bridges and communications infrastructure for financial apps that will allow capital markets to innovate like Silicon Valley.”
OpenFin’s OS has attracted investment from major banking institutions
The process of upgrading legacy IT infrastructure is a big issue facing financial institutions at present, as they look to keep pace with a market transformation in which customers expect a more modern approach to banking services and digital-first competitors are demonstrating what can be achieved with clever use of technology.
Brett Tejpaul, head of digital and client strategy at Barclays Investment Bank, said: “Agility and interoperability are core pillars of our digital strategy because time is a precious resource, especially in a banking environment.
“OpenFin accelerates our innovation cycle and allows us to create better workflows, enabling our colleagues and clients to make more productive use of their time.
“We are pleased to support the company, which is a leader in the industry with its open source model and its commitment to industry collaboration.”
Basil Darwish, managing director for strategic investments at Wells Fargo Securities, added: “We have been following OpenFin’s progress and are impressed by the company’s success in gaining wide adoption in capital markets.
“OpenFin is leading a key effort in providing the financial industry with a modern and unifying foundation for development and secure distribution of financial applications.”
The fintech firm was founded in 2010, and has headquarters in the financial centres of New York and London.
