Planixs, a high-growth FinTech company, has secured an initial £3.5m minority equity investment from BGF, the UK and Ireland’s most active investor in growing businesses. The company will take advantage of a fast-growing market by using the funding to expand its global customer base, accelerate product development and support recruitment across the business.
Founded in 2011, Manchester-based Planixs works with global financial institutions such as Lloyds Banking Group, Barclays and Zenith Bank, in providing its market-leading product suite Realiti®, a cloud-based and on premise technology solution suite delivering real-time intraday cash, collateral and liquidity management capabilities to the financial services industry.
Realiti® helps firms to comply with global BCBS248 regulatory requirements including stress modelling (incorporating UK PRA, FED and European Banking Authority regulations), using Planixs’ highly scalable business intelligence, optimisation and analytics technology platform Graphite which can work with any legacy systems. Realiti also drives operational savings and improves risk management for banks, financial institutions and large corporates including reducing expensive liquidity buffers.
Led by CEO and Founder Neville Roberts, the business recently moved its head office to Union House on Albert Square in the centre of Manchester. In 2018, Planixs ranked 22nd overall in the Sunday Times Tech Track 100 and is the UK’s number one Enterprise Fintech and leading North West technology company. The Tech Track awards are published every year by the Sunday Times and represent some of the fastest growing, profitable and most admired technology companies in the UK.
The investment comes after BGF experienced a record year of investing in the North West in 2018, providing £80m in long-term funding across 16 deals. New investments in 2018 included web hosting company Miss Group, digital solutions manufacturer Evoke Creative and image mapping business Gaist.
Neville Roberts, CEO of Planixs, commented: “Planixs has experienced significant growth in a relatively short period due to the team’s commitment to staying at the forefront of technology, simplifying regulatory compliance, driving liquidity cost benefit and delivering against the complexities of legacy systems that continue to permeate the financial system.
“I am hugely proud of what the business and the team has achieved to date and delighted to drive our growth agenda forward with the backing of BGF and its network. There is much more we want to achieve, particularly in terms of innovation and international expansion, and the move from angel investment to the support of a long-term investor in BGF is an important vote of confidence and enabler in those plans.”
Pinesh Mehta, an investor at BGF, said: “Planixs has built the market-leading FinTech solution for its rapidly-growing client base, delivering big data at scale and taking advantage of opportunities opening up due to important regulatory drivers.
“We’re delighted to be partnering with a strong, experienced management team, supporting them to deliver their world-class solutions and technology to a global market.”
Andy Gregory, BGF’s Head of Investments in the North, Scotland & Ireland, said: “Manchester is quickly becoming a global FinTech hub in the North West, with some great investments in infrastructure to date. Many of the UK’s leading financial services businesses have their back-office payment processing teams based here and we’re therefore seeing high levels of innovation to help them streamline their processes and manage their systems in a more efficient way. We’re delighted to be part of the UK’s FinTech growth story with our investment in Planixs. BGF invested in one business per week in 2018, and we’re ready to support more ambitious businesses in this industry and in Manchester in 2019.”
