Proxymity, the leading digital investor communications platform announced today that it has raised $31 million in its second-round investment stage.
The company has delivered significant growth since launch in April 2020, providing digital access to over 12,000 meetings in 29 markets worldwide. Proxymity will use the new funds to expand further their product and market footprint, drawing on the platform’s capabilities in delivering digital global investor communications.
Original consortium investors BNY Mellon, Citi, Computershare, Deutsche Bank, Deutsche Börse, J.P. Morgan, and State Street have participated in this current round. In doing so, these global institutions confirmed their commitment to invest in Proxymity’s vision of enhancing the global investor communications ecosystem and providing significant benefits for all involved.
Co-Founder and CEO, Dean Little commented. “We’re delighted to announce this successful round of fundraising, both in terms of the confidence our investors have shown in us, and in accessing new funds to fuel our significant global momentum. We continue to work closely with all our founding consortium members, and together, the Proxymity team is delivering on our vision, changing the industry ecosystem for the better.”
Proxymity is an innovative investor communications platform that connects issuers, intermediaries, and investors via their proprietary digital network. Its industry-leading services include real-time and fully transparent digital proxy voting, and shareholder disclosure, automating shareholder ID requests in industry compliant formats without the need for any manual intervention.
This means that investors receive “golden source” meeting announcements in real time and are able to vote up until the market deadline. This can add up to 6 extra days to enable research and decision-making when compared to existing market solutions. The Proxymity platform also drives solutions compliant with all the security and data protection requirements established under (EU) SRD II regulations, as well as shareholder rights.
Co-founders Dean Little and Jonathan Smalley, who have many years combined industry experience in custody product development, now lead a successful business serving investor markets world-wide, with a team of over 100 employees. Little and Smalley formulated the idea for Proxymity while working in Citi’s Equities and Securities Services (ESS) Custody Product group. The platform was first launched in the UK in 2018, following a collaborative pilot partnership with Computershare, and the company was spun out by Citi in April 2020.
In addition to its London, UK based HQ, and customer hubs in both Manchester, UK, and Melbourne, Australia, Proxymity will continue to maintain its technology and R & D team in Tel Aviv, Israel.
Comments from Consortium Investors:
Caroline Butler, Global Head of Custody, Tax & Network, BNY Mellon Asset Servicing
“Proxymity is changing how investor communications work by connecting issuers and investors in a transparent and more efficient digital ecosystem. We are excited to continue this collaboration with Proxymity and our industry partners as its success will be beneficial to the industry as a whole, which is BNY Mellon’s objective in all of our consortium investments.”
Matthew Bax, Managing Director, Global Head of Custody, Securities Services, Citi
“Citi has been part of the Proxymity story from the beginning, and we’re delighted to be part of the company’s next stage of growth, allowing Proxymity to continue to drive value and innovation to investor communications. The Consortium’s continued support for the Proxymity vision reflects the value that the Proxymity platform is bringing to the whole ecosystem.”
Paul Conn, President, Global Capital Markets, Computershare
“Computershare’s partnership with Proxymity continues to evolve and gain momentum as together we seek to deliver smarter solutions to known pain points in the investor communications market. In the last few months alone, we have seen Proxymity open its APAC hub in Australia, following joint collaboration of an integrated voting solution for custodians and their institutional investors in 2020; we’ve also delivered a market-first digital proxy voting into New Zealand. This further investment enables us to broaden our partnership to enter new geographic markets and develop new services for the benefit of many stakeholders.”
Paul Maley, Global Head of Securities Services, Deutsche Bank
“We’re excited to extend our partnership and investment in Proxymity. Deutsche Bank, as Custodians, welcome industry-wide initiatives that use technology to drive more efficient capital markets. In providing a fully transparent and real-time platform, Proxymity is assisting with the deployment of the SRD II legislation across Europe.”
Samuel Riley, Head of Clearstream Investor Services & Financing, Deutsche Börse
“Asset servicing is a strategic differentiator in the securities servicing space and proxy-voting is an integral part of that proposition. Proxymity’s goal of efficient and transparent investor communication is fully in line with Deutsche Börse’s vision. Hence, this joint collaboration will significantly improve our clients’ experience throughout the whole securities life cycle.”
Hannah Elson, Head of Global Custody, J.P. Morgan
“J.P. Morgan has been an active partner and investor in the Proxymity vision, and we’re excited to be part of the company’s next stage of growth. We continue to utilize the Proxymity platform, helping to ensure it achieves scale for digital communications throughout the industry ecosystem, benefiting clients and supporting corporate governance.”
Brenda Lyons, EVP and Global Head of Asset Servicing Product, State Street
“State Street is excited to continue our investment and partnership with Proxymity. We look forward to working with the team to create new opportunities on behalf of our clients. Being an original member of the consortium, we are confident this investment will not only benefit our custody services offerings but also our shared ambition to see a digitally connected ecosystem.”