PrimaryBid, the capital markets Fintech bringing individual investors into public company fundraisings, has appointed Fiona Richards as Chief Operating Officer.
Ms Richards joins PrimaryBid “from Rowan Dartington, the discretionary investment arm of St. James’s Place plc, where she was Chief Operating Officer and Board Director with executive responsibility for technology, change, customer services and operations.”
She brings deep insight “into financial technology build-outs and international capital markets with over 25 years’ regulated industry experience across consulting and investment banking at Deutsche Bank, HSBC, UBS, and Accenture.”
Ms Richards will “join the executive team based in London, reporting to PrimaryBid’s CEO Anand Sambasivan, and assume responsibility for global business operations and strategic planning.”
Anand Sambasivan, PrimaryBid’s CEO said:
“We are thrilled to welcome Fiona to PrimaryBid. She is an industry veteran, bringing highly relevant experience at an exciting time in our company’s growth. Recent regulatory developments around retail investors have only strengthened the need for technology-driven improvements to the capital markets infrastructure, and Fiona’s addition to our hugely experienced team means we can hit the ground running in 2023.”
Fiona Richards, PrimaryBid’s COO added:
“I have joined a firm with a very exciting future. PrimaryBid’s track record to this point speaks for itself and I look forward to supporting the continued build-out of the company as we expand geographically and across a deeper product set.”
Over the past six months PrimaryBid has strengthened its team across a number of key business areas “including information security, data science, distribution partnerships, product and compliance.”
Continued investment reflects growing regulatory scrutiny “on retail investor exclusion from public company fundraisings, as well as an expansion of PrimaryBid’s technologies and market share across geographies.”
As covered in February 2022, PrimaryBid, a SoftBank-backed Fintech assisting retail investors with getting early access to IPOs, secured $190 million in capital via the SoftBank Vision Fund 2 with the participation from Molten Ventures and others.
The London-based Fintech firm is focused on helping retail clients get improved pricing on various IPOs such as Deliveroo from last year.
PrimaryBid, a Fintech that is focused on enhancing access to capital markets for retail investors, was established back in 2015 by Anand Sambasivan and Kieran D’Silva. Following the fundraise, the firm could be valued at about $500 million.
When a firm gets ready for its IPO, established institutional investors like pension funds and insurers obtain early access to the share offering to take advantage of the offer at a considerable discount to the subsequent offer price. PrimaryBid is focused on bundling individual retail offers into a bigger book to assist with obtaining access to share offers at a competitive price.