Since securing €5m investment less than a year ago, Next Gate Tech has just closed a new funding round of €8m led by DB1 Ventures. We sat with co-founders, Davide Martucci and Semin Ibisevic, to hear what they’re up to now, and their future plans.
It was just ten months ago that you announced the last fundraising round, what has Next Gate Tech achieved since then?
A lot! From a company point of view, we opened an office in London last summer to attract local talent and be closer to our clients in the region. We increased our staff by more than 30% to support our growth and ambitions. At the end of 2022, we also announced a strategic partnership with Kneip and signed some very large asset managers, including some in the top 15 by assets under management (AUM) worldwide. We invested massively in our technology, developing new types of insights and analytics and completely reshaped our platform to make it even more valuable for our clients.
What should we expect from Next Gate Tech this year?
This year we are focusing on expanding the data management capabilities of the platform and we will also be investing significantly in AI and machine learning research to make the platform even smarter for our clients. As for the type of clients using our platform, until now, we’ve been focusing on the fund industry but our data harmonization and analytics capabilities have expanded and can now be applied to different types of businesses in the wider financial industry. For example, asset owners – such as life insurance companies or wealth managers – who require analytics. We know, having talked to some of them already, that they would be interested in using a platform like ours. Finally, this year will also be about target market expansion as we continue to have discussions with companies outside of Europe, mainly in the US and Asia.
Deutsche Börse Group [of which DB1 Ventures is the corporate VC arm] is a big corporation, what does their support mean for you?
It is a major milestone for our company. This investment is a transformational step in our journey as it will help us execute our strategic plan and gives us an extra boost to achieve our goals. Adding the name of Deutsche Börse to our list of shareholders elevates the position of Next Gate Tech in the market as we are now backed by one of the global leaders in financial services. Part of their plan, with Clearstream Fund Services and Kneip, is to become the top player for data management in the fund industry. Additionally, this fundraising is a clear indication that our investors believe in our company’s vision and potential.
This article was first published in the Silicon Luxembourg magazine. Get your copy.
