Primary Portal, a digital platform that aggregates and digitises equity capital market processes for banks and asset managers, has completed the first stage of its £7.5 million Series A funding round.

Primary Portal is a fintech company focused on developing and operating digital infrastructure solutions for equity capital markets and automating manual and time-consuming issuance processes. 

Drawing on over 20 years of experience in equity capital markets, founders John Bentinck and Ilan Leshem are transforming archaic and inefficient workflows that are still largely analogue, labour-intensive, and error-prone. 

With over 90 banks and 400 institutional investors using the platform, Primary Portal is rapidly digitising the equity issuance space by creating the infrastructure that makes capital markets systems interoperable. 

“We are delighted to welcome Deutsche Börse as a shareholder and are very excited to work together with them in further enhancing connectivity and digitisation for capital markets,” says founder John Bentinck. 

“Their investment is a strong endorsement of our collaborative approach to bringing digital solutions to market participants”. 

The venture capital arm of Deutsche Börse Group, DB1 Ventures led the round which also saw further investment from existing shareholders Dutch Founders Fund (DFF) and Flow Traders. 

According to Stefan Maassen, Head of Capital Markets & Corporates at Deutsche Börse:

“By digitising communication and workflows, Primary Portal paves the way for efficient connectivity between asset managers and banks in equity issuances, improving the process for companies to raise capital. 

Our partnership and commitment underscore our confidence in Primary Portal, its hard-working team and the European equity market.”

With the new investment, the company will expand its offering, particularly by connecting asset managers’ order management systems with banks, enabling straight-through processing in capital markets transactions for the first time. 

Additionally, Primary Portal will advance its analytical data solutions, providing powerful data and analytical tools to banks and asset managers.

Lead image: Primary Portal founders. Photo: uncredited.