TALLINN (Reuters) – Venture-funded Estonian company Funderbeam said on Wednesday it had obtained two financial services licenses from Singapore authorities, which will enable it to offer a global secondary market for trading in private companies.
“Our vision is to be the funding and trading platform of global private companies. To achieve this, we had to introduce a new business model and technology that could overcome the limitations of the existing, regulated alternative markets,” said Kaidi Ruusalepp, Funderbeam’s founder and chief executive.
Funderbeam said its new Recognised Market Operator license would enable it to offer an automated trading and secondary listing service to any private company in Europe and Asia, solving the longstanding liquidity problems of early stage investment.
Founded in 2013, Funderbeam has raised $15.8 million from investors, which include Tim Draper, Mistletoe and Thomson Reuters among others.
So far 39 companies are trading on Funderbeam and over 12,000 verified investors have signed up from 122 countries.
Reporting by Tarmo Virki; Editing by Giles Elgood