Baton Systems Snares $4M Investment

Baton Systems ("Baton"), a provider of distributed ledger-based post-trade solutions for capital markets, has received a $4 million investment from Illuminate Financial Management. Baton's total of $16 million in funding, which also includes investors Trinity Ventures, Alsop Louie and Commerce Ventures, will be used to accelerate its global roll-out, particularly in EMEA, where Baton recently opened a London office.

The addition of London and New York-based Illuminate Financial to the Board adds industry specialization and regional focus as the Baton business seeks to deploy its post-trade settlements platform across top-tier banks and infrastructure providers, including the major clearing houses. The platform already enables banks, such as JPMorgan, to drastically reduce the payments and settlement process from days to under three minutes.

"Baton was created to solve inefficiencies in global payments systems, and we've made great progress working through the structural challenges the industry faces," said Arjun Jayaram CEO and Founder at Baton Systems. "An increasing number of banks and clearing houses are realizing that a fast, standardized, and immutable approach to transferring assets is the only viable path forward. The confidence shown by an industry focused investor such as Illuminate Financial along with our existing stakeholders is further validation of our vision for a streamlined and efficient settlement model."

"Baton's speed and accuracy is eliminating many of the problems that legacy systems have burdened the global settlements ecosystem for decades," said Mark Beeston at Illuminate Financial. "We are excited to play a role in Baton's journey as the Company modernizes the settlement landscape and scales its business across major financial institutions in Europe and North America."

In October 2019, Baton appointed Alex Knight, an FX banking industry veteran, as Head of EMEA. The funding also follows several high-profile wins for the Company in Europe, including a successful pilot with the Bank of England, which delivers a renewed real-time gross settlement (RTGS) service to enable their systems to connect and achieve settlement in central bank money.

About Baton
Baton Systems is reforming how payments are made in the world's largest financial markets. By delivering on-demand synchronization and orchestration of asset movements through its distributed ledger-based platform, it is liberating balance sheets and eliminating the need for capital-intensive pre-funding of FX and margin requirements. Founded in 2016 by technology, payments and capital markets veterans, and backed by venture capital, Baton Systems works with numerous market participants – including major global banks, custodian banks and exchanges – to meet today's demands for capital efficiency, regulatory compliance and operational superiority. Find out more at www.batonsystems.com.

About Illuminate Financial Management
Established in 2014, Illuminate Financial Management (Illuminate) is a London and New York based specialist venture capital fund focused on enterprise technology and software solutions for financial services. Our deep networks and partnerships with key industry participants from banks to infrastructure providers and buy side wealth managers, allow us to gain real insight into what the industry needs, and help the companies we back achieve their full potential. For more information, visit www.illuminatefinancial.com.