- Jacobi — an investment technology platform company — announced it raised $11 million AUD in funding from several US investors
Investment technology platform company Jacobi has announced it raised $11 million AUD in funding from several prominent US investors. This round of funding was led by Illuminate Venture Partners, 8VC and Credit Ease Venture Fund.
This round of funding will be used for further supporting the development of the Jacobi platform and expansion into new markets. And Jacobi has a global clientele in Australia, North America, Asia, and Europe that are representing combined assets under management of over $A1.5 trillion including sovereign wealth funds, retirement funds, asset and wealth managers, and investment consultants.
“Jacobi’s global client base continues to grow at a fast pace. This is due to a greater focus on portfolio construction and risk which has largely come as a result of regulatory change. Investors are now more focused on asset allocation and client outcomes than ever before, and they require flexible technology that is purpose-built for the multi-asset investor,” said Jacobi co-founder Tony Mackenzie. “We believe that investment technology needs to reflect the client’s investment approach, not the other way around. Jacobi’s solution allows clients to customize the platform, such as incorporating their own investment models, risk engines, forward projections, and dashboard needs. This allows clients to scale and simplify their entire investment process.”
Going forward, Jacobi is going to extend its focus to the European market after signing a number of large institutional investment managers. And the funding round will be used for launching Jacobi’s office in London along with building on locations in Brisbane and San Francisco.
“At Illuminate we see over 1,000 investment opportunities a year and invest in only a handful. Three key parameters drove our decision to work with Jacobi: team, technology and trends,” added Illuminate Venture Partners founder and managing partner Cindy Padnos. “We saw a super talented team with deep domain knowledge in the area cross-asset risk management – a thorny problem that remained virtually unaddressed by existing solutions. Equally important, they had built an elegantly designed set of offerings that were useful not just for asset managers, but that could also be put directly into the hands of the clients they served. When you add in the growing demand for improved investment reporting transparency and better client interaction tools, our decision to invest was obvious.”
Mackenzie (former QIC executive) founded Jacobi with Tanya Bartolini and Greg Knox in 2014. All of them are from regional Queensland. Knox previously worked as an engineer at companies like randomnoun, Betfair, Misys, and CITEC. And Bartolini has banking experiences at Colonial First State and Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA).
“We are excited about the increased capabilities that the partnership between JANA and Jacobi offers to JANA’s clients. Our product “Solve” is the unique combination of JANA’s capital market insights and Jacobi’s technology and analytics platform designed to enhance the way we work with our clients on the risk profile of their portfolio,” explained JANA’s Head of Portfolio Construction and Risk Matthew Griffith.
