Private markets are gaining momentum and has increased traction among both institutional and individual investors. In the past decade, the size of the private equity market tripled, thereby reaching $6 trillion. During the pandemic, the demand for private markets surged further as investors opt for alternative assets for their resilience, longer-term returns, and diversity of opportunities.
Financial institutions have found it tough to offer illiquid investment opportunities in a scalable way despite a spike in investor interest. As this demand is reaching a tipping point, financial institutions are adapting to digitisation or risk losing clients in the highly competitive market.
One of the companies that help in this digitisation process is UK-based Delio. The fintech company helps digitise the private markets strategies of leading banks, wealth managers and other financial firms. It claims to be a part of the fintech revolution that is changing the way financial institutions and their clients interact for the better.
$8.3M investment
Now, Delio has secured $8.3 million in growth funding in a round led by Octopus Ventures, which is one of the most active venture capital investors in Europe. This London investor has led the funding rounds in Touchlab, Sova, and Nosso recently. The round involved additional investment from early-backer Maven Capital Partners. With this, the total funding raised by Delio to $15.5 million.
Delio will deploy the proceeds of this round to enable financial institutions of all sizes to create greater investor access to alternative assets such as private equity, private debt, and real estate. The funding will help the fintech to engineer the building blocks of a digital private markets infrastructure from which firms can collaborate and share deals with each other.
With this investment, Delio will further enhance its international operations and lay the foundations of its non-conflicted private markets infrastructure. This digital network will connect capital raisers, financial institutions and investors on a global scale and share investment opportunities on an institution-to-institution basis.
Gareth Lewis, Chief Executive and Co-Founder of Delio said: “With investor demand at an all-time high, there is a lot of noise around how institutions overcome the traditional barriers to private markets. We’ve taken a different approach, creating white-labelled technology that acts as the digital building blocks on which firms can scale their propositions. The growth funding from Octopus Ventures validates this approach and strengthens our plan of stimulating greater connectivity between financial institutions, capital raisers and investors.”
Edward Keelan, Investment Principal, Octopus Ventures said: “Delio’s market-leading private company technology solution is already serving some of the world’s largest global wealth managers, private and investment banks, with this funding round allowing Delio to continue to enhance its suite of private market infrastructure solutions, as well as scaling into new geographies. Furthermore, there is strong alignment between Delio and Octopus in making private company investing more available for all investors and we look forward to supporting the team on this journey”.
Digistises private investments
Founded by Gareth Lewis and David Newman in Cardiff in 2015, Delio’s technology has played a critical role in helping companies transform how unlisted investment opportunities are offered to their clients. The digitisation of the entire private investment cycle lets financial institutions to offer a more intuitive investment experience, enhance their operational efficiency, and gather invaluable user insights.
Delio operates across Europe, Asia, North America and Australia. Its technology helps financial institutions connect their clients with private investment opportunities quickly, transparently and compliantly.
From international private banks to wealth managers and angel networks, Delio serves more than 90 financial institutions including the likes of Barclays, UBS and Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Bank. Currently, over $26 billion-worth investment opportunities are shared across Delio-powered platforms.
