Index Ventures Makes One of Its Largest Investments and Provides
the First Institutional Round of $17 Million in Financing for OANDA
Index Expands Its Portfolio With Global Leader in Online Currency Trading
LONDON and GENEVA, Sept. 21 /PRNewswire/ -- Index Ventures, a leading
venture capital firm based in Europe, today announced a solo $17 million
investment in OANDA, an innovator for global currency trading. OANDA has been
profitable since it launched FXTrade, the world's first end-to-end,
fully-automated currency trading platform in 2001. OANDA offers the lowest
spreads in the online Forex market and will use its venture capital funding to
further extend its market position and reach.
Following the recently announced sale of Skype to eBay, Index is again
backing an innovative company determined to redefine an established market
for services -- the global market for foreign exchange. Both Danny Rimer and
Bernard Dalle, General Partners at Index Ventures will be members of the
board, following this deal.
"We are very excited to invest in OANDA. It has the best technology
platform we've seen in the space, a very compelling service and an excellent
team supporting an innovative business model. We believe that OANDA will do
for global currency trading what E*TRADE did for stock trading in the 1990's,"
said Danny Rimer, General Partner at Index Ventures.
"We are very happy to have Index Ventures as partner as they have a
successful history of financing disruptive businesses such as Skype, Betfair
and MySQL and OANDA has been a disruptive force for the financial community
since it's inception in 2001," said Michael Stumm, president of OANDA. "With
Index' support, we hope to expand our reach and continue to lead the market
with innovative online currency trading solutions."
- About OANDA
OANDA Corporation is a pioneer in Internet-based currency trading and a
global leader in currency localization and information services. With one of
the world's largest historical high frequency, filtered currency databases,
OANDA was the first to offer a broad range of currency exchange rate
information free of charge to the general public over the Web in 1995.
OANDA became an Internet-based business-to-business application provider
(ASP) in 1997 and currently services over 75,000 ASP clients globally while to
date, OANDA has closed over 72 million transactions. With FXTrade, OANDA was
one of the first to bring a fully automated currency trading system to the Web
in early 2001. The OANDA FXTrade system offers retail and institutional
clients a cutting-edge platform that provides competitive, real-time access to
the foreign exchange market. The company is headquartered in New Yorkwith
offices in Torontoand Zurich. For more information about OANDA and its
services, please visit OANDA.com.
OANDA is a registered Futures Commission Merchant (FCM) with the Commodity
Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and is a member of the National Futures
Association (NFA).
- About Index Ventures
Index Ventures is a leading European venture capital firm active in
technology venture investing since 1996. The firm is dedicated to helping top
entrepreneurial teams both in the Life Science and Information Technology
sectors build their companies into market defining global leaders.
Index Ventures has a dedicated investment team who are consistently
seeking out companies with products and services that drive the transformation
of their industries. Index's company building approach, which allows each
portfolio entrepreneur to leverage the experience, strategic cross-Atlantic
relationships and resources of the entire partnership, has subsequently
resulted in a portfolio of some of the most dynamic companies in the
information technology and life science industry today.
The firm has offices in Geneva, London and Jersey and focuses its
investment activity primarily on Europe and Israel. Life science investments
include Genmab, Hamilton, BioXell, Parallele Biosciences and 7TM. Information
technology investments include Betfair, now the world's largest betting
exchange; Virata, (acquired by Conexant) a world leader in DSL and other
communication chipsets; Skype (global P2P telephony service); MySQL (the
world's most popular open source database); and KVS (email archiving firm
recently sold to Veritas).
Source: indexventures.com
the First Institutional Round of $17 Million in Financing for OANDA
Index Expands Its Portfolio With Global Leader in Online Currency Trading
LONDON and GENEVA, Sept. 21 /PRNewswire/ -- Index Ventures, a leading
venture capital firm based in Europe, today announced a solo $17 million
investment in OANDA, an innovator for global currency trading. OANDA has been
profitable since it launched FXTrade, the world's first end-to-end,
fully-automated currency trading platform in 2001. OANDA offers the lowest
spreads in the online Forex market and will use its venture capital funding to
further extend its market position and reach.
Following the recently announced sale of Skype to eBay, Index is again
backing an innovative company determined to redefine an established market
for services -- the global market for foreign exchange. Both Danny Rimer and
Bernard Dalle, General Partners at Index Ventures will be members of the
board, following this deal.
"We are very excited to invest in OANDA. It has the best technology
platform we've seen in the space, a very compelling service and an excellent
team supporting an innovative business model. We believe that OANDA will do
for global currency trading what E*TRADE did for stock trading in the 1990's,"
said Danny Rimer, General Partner at Index Ventures.
"We are very happy to have Index Ventures as partner as they have a
successful history of financing disruptive businesses such as Skype, Betfair
and MySQL and OANDA has been a disruptive force for the financial community
since it's inception in 2001," said Michael Stumm, president of OANDA. "With
Index' support, we hope to expand our reach and continue to lead the market
with innovative online currency trading solutions."
- About OANDA
OANDA Corporation is a pioneer in Internet-based currency trading and a
global leader in currency localization and information services. With one of
the world's largest historical high frequency, filtered currency databases,
OANDA was the first to offer a broad range of currency exchange rate
information free of charge to the general public over the Web in 1995.
OANDA became an Internet-based business-to-business application provider
(ASP) in 1997 and currently services over 75,000 ASP clients globally while to
date, OANDA has closed over 72 million transactions. With FXTrade, OANDA was
one of the first to bring a fully automated currency trading system to the Web
in early 2001. The OANDA FXTrade system offers retail and institutional
clients a cutting-edge platform that provides competitive, real-time access to
the foreign exchange market. The company is headquartered in New Yorkwith
offices in Torontoand Zurich. For more information about OANDA and its
services, please visit OANDA.com.
OANDA is a registered Futures Commission Merchant (FCM) with the Commodity
Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and is a member of the National Futures
Association (NFA).
- About Index Ventures
Index Ventures is a leading European venture capital firm active in
technology venture investing since 1996. The firm is dedicated to helping top
entrepreneurial teams both in the Life Science and Information Technology
sectors build their companies into market defining global leaders.
Index Ventures has a dedicated investment team who are consistently
seeking out companies with products and services that drive the transformation
of their industries. Index's company building approach, which allows each
portfolio entrepreneur to leverage the experience, strategic cross-Atlantic
relationships and resources of the entire partnership, has subsequently
resulted in a portfolio of some of the most dynamic companies in the
information technology and life science industry today.
The firm has offices in Geneva, London and Jersey and focuses its
investment activity primarily on Europe and Israel. Life science investments
include Genmab, Hamilton, BioXell, Parallele Biosciences and 7TM. Information
technology investments include Betfair, now the world's largest betting
exchange; Virata, (acquired by Conexant) a world leader in DSL and other
communication chipsets; Skype (global P2P telephony service); MySQL (the
world's most popular open source database); and KVS (email archiving firm
recently sold to Veritas).
Source: indexventures.com
