BMLL raises $26 million to democratize Level 3 data for wider industry

BMLL has secured $26 million in a Series B investment led by Nasdaq Ventures, FactSet and IQ Capital’s Growth Fund with participation from ACF Investors and other new and existing investors.

The funds raised will be used to fuel BMLL’s Level 3 data and analytics products and the firm’s geographic expansion, catering to banks, exchanges, sophisticated hedge funds, quants, academics and regulators.

The startup already serves big names within the financial services industry, including the FCA; Aquis and SIX exchanges; Kepler Cheuvreux; quants from NYU and Ecole Polytechnique (academics carrying out research on equities and futures), and more.

Welcome to Level 3

Level 3 data is unique in that it gives you the most comprehensive view of how the market behaves, from order resting times to fill probabilities; users can backtest trading strategies, fine tune algo routing logic or generate alpha.

Clients are able to access BMLL’s order book data and analytics enabling them to derive predictive insights, backtest strategies to generate alpha and gain an understanding of how markets behave.

BMLL covers equities, futures and ETFs in Europe and the US and has just recently launched their flagship no-code data visualisation tool called BMLL Vantage.

$26 million for new data sets, engineering, and New York office

The funding will support investment in acquiring new data sets globally, growing the BMLL engineering capabilities to integrate these new data and analytics capabilities into existing products for an ever-expanding universe of customers, and building on the existing presence in North America with the opening of an office in New York.

BMLL has significantly grown its revenues over the last 12 months and onboarded Tier 1 clients, including Investment Banks, Exchanges, Buy-Side firms, Academics and Regulators, while expanding into the futures market. The firm launched its flagship product BMLL Vantage for EU and US equities and ETFs.

Paul Humphrey, CEO, BMLL, said that granular Level 3 data and analytics capabilities help market participants unlock the full potential of the predictive power of historic pricing data and make more informed decisions.

BMLL’s order book data and analytics platform

Gary Offner, Senior Vice President and Head of Nasdaq Ventures, said: “Nasdaq Ventures is committed to investing in financial technology companies that align with our vision to reimagine the markets of tomorrow. By democratising access to the most granular data and analytics, all market participants can benefit from BMLL’s solutions, and we are delighted to support their continued growth.”

Jonathan Reeve, Executive Vice President, Head of Content and Technology Solutions at FactSet, said: “Data-driven decisions are the lifeblood of our industry and the driving force behind our product development and the collaborations we build. FactSet is pleased to support the growth and success of BMLL, which shares our commitment to empowering the financial community to make more informed investment decisions through accessing high-quality data and analytics. We are excited to invest in BMLL and its order book data and analytics platform, which gives market participants a granular understanding of market moves.”

Kerry Baldwin, Co-Founder, Managing Partner of IQ Capital: “IQ Capital led BMLL’s seed round and has continued to support the company through their very earliest stages. We have supported and worked closely with BMLL’s exceptional leadership team to develop their breakthrough Deep Tech product, which democratises access to Level 3 data for the wider industry. Our latest investment from our Growth Fund, which supports outperforming companies in our portfolio, will drive the company’s continued growth and international expansion.”

Paul Humphrey, CEO of BMLL, concluded: “It has been our mission to democratise access to Level 3 data and analytics capabilities and the latest funding will support our aim to make these insights available to a wider audience. We are immensely proud of the outstanding industry recognition we have gained over time, and I’d like to thank my team for their unwavering dedication to customer services, our esteemed clients for their support, and our investors for backing our vision.”

Over the last 12 months alone, BMLL has been on an accelerated growth path securing a number of significant customers and collaborations. BMLL counts the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) as a customer, who is using the BMLL Data Lab and BMLL Data Feed to examine order behaviour. NYU’s Quant Team uses the BMLL Data Lab to carry out research on the futures market at the university’s Mathematics in Finance Program. Kepler Cheuvreux’s teams conduct order book analytics to optimise algo performance using BMLL’s Level 3 data. What’s more, BMLL helps Aquis Exchange provide its members with insights into market structure dynamics, while SIX Group uses BMLL data for customised order book analytics for the Swiss EBBO. And Jefferies carries out detailed order book analysis for passive / aggressive trading strategies using BMLL data.

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