Iris Financial has won an $11 million investment from funds advised by Apax Partners and appointed Michael Laven as CEO and Robin Phillips as CFO.
The component-based trading technology firm, rechristened Iris Financial Engineering Holdings Ltd (IFEHL), has been delivering tailored applications for bulge bracket, tier one financial institutions for over ten years.
Says new CEO Laven: "The funds that have been invested in the company will enable us further to expand our trading solutions to regional banks as well as strengthening the breadth and depth of our component functionality and client support."
Laven was previously CEO of Infinity Financial Technology and subsequently president of the trading and risk group at SunGard Data Systems after its acquisition of Infinity. New chief financial officer Phillips was most recently the CFO of managed software solutions provider Civica.
The new appointments were a condition of the financing package. The company was originally founded in San Francisco in the early 1990s by Richard Vaughan and Jeremy Evnine, technical and business experts from Wells Fargo. Iris says Vaughan, previously MD of the company, will be based in London and continue to play an active role as 'chief strategist', reporting to Laven. Evnine sold his stake in Iris as part of the funding round but will maintain a consulting role while continuing to run the EVA hedge fund.
Michael Chalfen, director, Apax Partners comments: "Iris Financial's history of profitable growth and the combined track record of the incumbent and new management gives us confidence that the company will capitalise on its opportunity."