Foreign exchange startup Spark Systems has raised $5m in a new round of funding.
The Singapore based company aims to reduce the time it takes for forex trades to go through and thereby reduce the cost of the transactions.
The firm says it is already working with a major hedge fund and will use the capital to launch its platform in beta mode early next year.
Singapore is already home to a number of forex exchange marketplaces but none are unified in the way that Spark Systems aims to be.
Forex trading in Singapore usually flows through Tokyo or London adding milliseconds to the time of transactions which can become costly.
During those milliseconds prices can also expire increasing the likelihood of a trade being rejected.
The company’s CEO and co-founder Wong Joo Seng is also a partner at Vickers Venture Partners and was previously chief executive at a financial services firm where he witnessed the high costs of forex transactions.
He told the Straits Times: “When we were dealing with firms whose trading volumes were in excess of several trillion dollars per year, total transaction costs can be $6m to $7m per trillion.
“This means that about 40 cents of every dollar earned is used to pay the market operator.”
The company aims to ink more partnerships and create private platforms for hedge funds and banks that are then linked through a network.
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