Yesterday Axoni announced it sold its Veris post trade processing business to the London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG), one of its many investors. The terms of the deal were not announced. Veris was originally built using DLT for equity swaps, launching in 2020 with 15 sell-side and buy-side firms, including Citi and Goldman Sachs.
From the start, Axoni provided capital markets with DLT solutions using an enterprise version of the Ethereum blockchain. In late 2022, one of its biggest projects went live with the DTCC, the Trade Information Warehouse. The solution had two options, using conventional technology or DLT. The latter did not prove popular.
Hence, when last week Axoni announced its rebranded data replication solution HYDRA, it is now DLT ‘inspired’ and has some DLT-like features, but no longer uses DLT. Ironically, this comes when DLT is getting significant attention from institutions.
However, the debates about which DLT is most appropriate for institutions has resurfaced, not least because
The company still has some significant projects in progress, including as technology partner for The OCC securities lending platform’s new Ovation offering.
Last year Axoni announced a $20 million funding round led by venture capital firms, taking cumulative funds raised past the $110 million mark. Some of its institutional backers include Citi, CME Ventures, Deutsche Bank, Franklin Templeton, Goldman Sachs, HSBC, J.P. Morgan, LSEG, UBS and Wells Fargo.
