Singapore-based fintech BondEvalue has raised US$6 million in its Series A round of fund raising, bringing the total funding raised by the company to US$10 million.
MassMutual Ventures Southeast Asia and Citigroup were among the new investors and are expected to be represented on the board.
Other investors included existing shareholders Potato Productions, a company helmed by entrepreneur Lee Han Shih, and Octava, a Singapore-based family office.
BondEvalue will use the proceeds to increase its international members.
It also announced its joint venture in Mexico that is headed by Jaime Zenizo, previously head trader for HSBC Mexico.
The JV will form a Peso bond exchange and represents the first local currency expansion by BondEvalue.
BondEvalue received a Recognised Market Operator (RMO) approval from the Monetary Authority of Singapore to operate BondbloX Bond Exchange, a fractional bond exchange in October last year.
The company’s proprietary technology and enterprise-grade blockchain enables BondbloX investors to buy and sell bonds in denominations of US$1,000 instead of the usual US$200,000, and through a public exchange where prices are highly transparent.
Rahul Banerjee, Co-Founder and CEO of BondEvalue said,
“Citi and MassMutual are behemoths in the bond market. Their support of our vision to have a transparent bond market will accelerate our momentum.
We are excited about the future and are focused on executing our mission of bringing bond investing to the so-called HENRYs (High earners, not rich yet), who hitherto were unable to buy bonds.”
Chris Cox, Global Head of Data and Digitisation and Strategic Projects, and EMEA Head of Securities Services at Citi said,
“We are delighted to close our investment in BondEvalue. Alongside Northern Trust, Citi will join the BondbloX Bond Exchange as an asset servicing provider and as a strategic partner to the BondEvalue ecosystem.
We are excited about the prospect of digitalisation of traditional assets and to be part of that journey with BondEvalue.”
Featured image credit: screengrab from BondEvalue
