Fenergo Secures €4m in Equity Investment Led by Investec Ventures to Accelerate Market Leadership

DUBLIN, October 8, 2013 /PRNewswire/ --

Fenergo, a company chaired by Paul Kerley, former founder and CEO of Norkom Technologies, has received the backing of Investec Ventures in its first external funding round to accelerate the company's international growth

Fenergo, an innovative Irish software company that specialises in enabling financial institutions to meet regulatory compliance and data requirements in onboarding new clients, today announced it has secured €4 million of new equity funding, which will help support the company's continued international growth and development.

The €4 million investment is being made by The Ulster Bank Diageo Venture Fund, managed by Investec Ventures, with co-investment from existing shareholders.

The Dublin-based company, which develops client onboarding, enterprise compliance and data management software solutions for investment banks, plans to use the funds to further expand its global footprint across North America, Europe and Asia Pacific, and accelerate the development of its enterprise platform. This announcement builds on the company's successes over the last year which has seen it sign four global marquee clients, including two leading North American financial institutions, kick-starting its ambitious internationalisation plans.

According to Marc Murphy, co-founder and CEO of Fenergo, "We are absolutely delighted to work with Investec Ventures in securing this new round of funding. Investec's footprint and relationships within the financial sector, combined with their team's experience in helping enterprise software companies expand globally, make them an ideal partner for Fenergo. Having won a number of new clients this year in the US and Canada, we have reached a critical juncture in the company's journey. We aim to use this new injection of capital to further enhance our solutions in line with client and market needs, accelerate our global growth strategy and consolidate our position as market leader. This is a significant milestone in our company's development and I am looking forward to shaping Fenergo into a global force in the fintech space."

Commenting on the investment, John Dolan, Partner in Investec Ventures, said, "Fenergo is a great example of an indigenous high growth potential business led by impressive management that we and our investors are keen to support and help grow into the global market leader. The company has proven deployments with large global tier one banks and is solving a real pain-point for financial institutions who have relied primarily on labour intensive manual processes in onboarding new clients. We believe the company is poised to become the leading technology player in addressing the increased regulatory requirements faced by financial institutions. We are delighted to complete this investment, the 16^th investment from our €75m managed fund, and look forward to supporting the Fenergo team as they enter their next phase of growth."

Following the worst financial crisis in recent history, new and strengthened regulations - such as anti-money laundering (AML), know your customer (KYC), Dodd-Frank, FATCA, EMIR and MiFID - are driving the demand for client onboarding, compliance and reference data management solutions. As compliance obligations continue to evolve with increased regulatory oversight, heavier fines and penalties, and demands for higher quality client and counterparty data, Fenergo is positioned to capitalise on this growth trend.

As Marc Murphy explains, "Fenergo offers a single enterprise platform that enables financial institutions to significantly improve efficiencies and reduce operational costs. Our world-class client onboarding workflow technology streamlines onboarding, account opening and client maintenance processes for global banks and delivers regulatory onboarding processes that ensure global compliance with regulations such as KYC, AML, Dodd-Frank, MiFID, FATCA and EMIR with clean, golden source client and counterparty data. By offering all of this on one platform solution, financial institutions can get on with the business of banking and generating revenues, while complying fully with all regulatory obligations."  

Fenergo's existing client base includes some of the largest global financial institutions including RBS, Lloyds Banking Group, Investec and Rabobank. The company is also an Enterprise Ireland client.

Following the investment, John Dolan of Investec Ventures will join the Board of Fenergo.

Investec Ventures (formerly NCB Ventures), is part of the Investec Group in Ireland, and manages a €75 million venture capital fund established under the Enterprise Ireland Venture Capital Programme.  The Fund invests between €1-€5 million in Irish companies across a range of sectors and stages of development and has, to date, invested in sixteen companies.

About Fenergo (http://www.fenergo.com):

Fenergo is an award-winning provider of enterprise platform solutions designed to help financial institutions to manage the end-to-end regulatory onboarding process - from onboarding, to management of client and counterparty data and regulatory compliance with existing and emerging regulations. These solutions simplify and rationalise often complex operational interactions of client lifecycle management by orchestrating onboarding, regulatory compliance and KYC activities across all touch-points within the bank. In 2012, Fenergo was presented with the Best Customer Onboarding Solution Award by the Compliance Register.

About Investec Ventures Ireland Limited ("Investec Ventures") and the Ulster Bank Diageo Venture Fund

Investec Ventures (formerly NCB Ventures), is part of the Investec Group in Ireland, and manages the €75 million Ulster Bank Diageo Venture Fund established in 2008 under the Enterprise Ireland Seed and Venture Capital Programme 2007-2012.

The Fund invests €1-€5 million in Irish companies across a range of sectors and stages of development and has to date invested in sixteen companies AMCS, Brite:bill, Betapond; ePub Direct, Fenergo, Ferfics, Gridstore, Helix Health, HeyStaks, MicksGarage, Rainmaker, RAPT Technologies, SilverCloud Health, Terminal Four Solutions, Xtra-vision and Zamano. Investec Ventures has invested in over 40 Irish businesses taking them from early stages of development through to trade sale and IPO.

Investec in Ireland, a member of the Investec Group, is a leading specialist bank and wealth and investment manager in Ireland and is based in Harcourt Street, Dublin 2. The Investec Group is a leading international, specialist-banking group, with headquarters in Johannesburg, South Africa. The group was founded in 1974 and currently has approximately 8,000 employees with offices in 14 countries. Investec Group acquired NCB in 2012, one of Ireland's leading financial services groups, and whose main activities include Stockbroking (private client and institutional), Bonds, Corporate Finance, Venture Capital Investment and International Funds listing. Investec Group is quoted on the Johannesburg and London stock exchanges with a market capitalisation of circa £4.2bn as of 31 March 2013.  Investec's three principal areas of business worldwide are Specialist Banking, Wealth and Investment and Asset Management. For more information, visit http://www.investec.ie.

For more information on this announcement, please contact:
Fiona McLoughlin, Head of Marketing, Fenergo
T: +353-1-856-5915 
E: fiona.mcloughlin@fenergo.com