Supporting the evolution of Private Markets

Posted: 04 March 2022

The London Stock Exchange announces partnership with Floww - creating strong network effects through quality data, driving efficient access to primary capital and liquidity in the private markets.

The London Stock Exchange and Floww will be collaborating in several key areas:

  •  Scaling Floww’s existing network of companies and investors by leveraging LSEG’s network and stakeholders.
  •  Further enhancing the visibility for the companies in the network.
  •  Helping launch Floww’s private primary capital raising facility, including through standardisation, and streamlining of associated documentation and processes.
  •  Jointly exploring liquidity and secondary market options, including through distributed ledger technology.
  •  Leveraging the data and insights captured on Floww to add value to our Data & Analytics offering.

Strategic investment in and partnership with Floww

London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG) today announced a long-term strategic partnership with Floww, bringing investors together with growing, private companies.

Floww complements LSEG’s strategy of modernising the capital markets and building our presence in the private space.  The partnership with Floww will make LSEG part of a network of private companies and investors built on data and insights, to ultimately facilitate private primary capital raising and liquidity. 

Floww is a data-centric network for private companies (with an initial focus on technology start-ups/scaleups) and investors, having started as a SaaS platform for venture capital firms and other investors to manage their portfolios. Floww’s vision - to make access to capital for growing companies merit-based, aligns with the Group vision. LSEG’s investment re-affirms our commitment to creating a fully integrated funding continuum. 

LSEG will be working in partnership with Floww to help launch Floww’s private primary capital raising facility. Floww will remain focused on continually improving access to capital raising opportunities through the provision of better data and information on private companies.

Our vision: Enabling the funding continuum

LSEG is passionate about supporting companies at all stages of maturity to access the capital to achieve their ambitions and make an economic impact. We have continued to champion growing businesses from across the UK and the world through our range of markets, thought leadership and regulatory advocacy.

We recognise that the lines between public and private markets are blurring, and companies demand flexibility when interacting with either to maximise their access to investors and optimise their cost of capital. Our goal is to enable just that – a smooth and efficient process of moving between the two. As an exchange, we want to be agnostic to issuers choosing to use the public or private route to finance their growth. 

Floww - vision

Supporting the evolution of Private Markets

The global private equity, venture capital and credit markets have continued to grow over the last 10 years, aided by the rise of new platforms and new financial instruments. Increased capital and sophistication in private markets has meant that the IPO as an event has shifted to the later stages of a company’s growth. 

In addition to making public markets more accessible to companies at earlier stages of growth, we want to play an important role in the private markets by bringing our experience, robust technology and network enhancing efficiency for all participants involved.

We recognise the distinction between private and public markets will continue to blur through digital infrastructure and regulatory change. However, at present there remain many pain points for companies, investors and intermediaries within the private capital markets and when moving between the public and private markets. With our expertise and credibility in operating resilient markets at scale, LSEG can play a critical role in better connecting private and public markets by enabling a seamless funding continuum for capital hungry businesses.

Digitisation in capital markets

Over the last few years, we have developed digital solutions for streamlining the capital raising process, e.g. simplification of the execution of debt transactions; our Issuer Services platform; enabling retail participation through our PrimaryBid partnership. And we continue to enhance these capabilities:

  • SparkLive Roadshow: a webcasting platform designed to facilitate communication between companies and investors in a more cost-effective and green manner
  • Marketplace: a curated community of service providers that support company growth
  • Content: acting as a hub for curated content and thought leadership for issuers

Floww - digitisation

We plan to extend these capabilities to private companies, giving them the tools to grow and raise their visibility.

In addition, we will be exploring how best to leverage new technologies to reduce friction and costs in existing processes.

Strengthening links with public markets

Combining our partnership with Floww and experience of creating and operating markets we are in the unique position to explore new ways of linking the private and public markets through regulation, technology and our product offerings.

We continue to work with the UK Government and regulators to support the development of the funding continuum ensuring companies at all stages of their lifecycle, in the UK and globally, are able to access the capital they need through the UK Capital Markets.

 

Find out more about Floww

 

Frequently asked questions about Floww

Our partnership

What is Floww?

Floww is a data-centric network for growing private companies and investors, having started as a SaaS platform for VCs / investors to manage their portfolios.

What is the funding continuum?

The funding continuum refers to the funding journey a company goes through as it grows. Our goal is to enable more efficient access to capital and liquidity for private and public companies across the funding continuum. As part of this, London Stock Exchange aims to create a seamless environment for companies progressing between private and public markets.

About the Floww product

Can private companies raise capital through the platform?

Floww introduces companies to over 1,000 professional funding partners such as venture capital firms, accelerators and angel networks. This year Floww is bringing the end-to-end capital raising process on their platform, with investors able to place orders on a platform-based order book and manage and complete transactions on platform.

How does Floww benefit founders?
  • Efficiency – Easily update both existing and potential investors with all the key business updates through simply dragging and dropping information/files into Floww.
  • Quality – Floww’s team of trained accountants and content writers support entrepreneurs ensuring their information is accurate, complete and showing the company in its best light.
  • Access – Floww provides access to over 1,000 funding partners all over the world to help entrepreneurs find the right partner for them.
  • Control – Floww is the ultimate data-sharing solution, enabling entrepreneurs to control exactly what they share with which parties in a safe and secure way, and to get insights on who is engaging with their information.
How does Floww benefit investors?
  • Transparency – easily access all the key information on both your existing and potential investments.
  • Consistent/accurate – Floww processes each company’s data directly from the source, even from accounting software. It is then verified and audited by our trained accountants and content writers to ensure it is both consistent and accurate.
  • Comparable – Floww’s intuitive UI allows easy comparison of companies, both against each other and against Floww’s proprietary benchmark data.
  • Efficiency – pulling insights from Excel and PDFs is time-consuming and frustrating. Floww’s UI is built by investors for investors, making it effortless to gain important insights into a business.
What is Floww doing that is different from other data providers?
  • Floww uses a combination of technology, real accountants and content writers to ensure data is of the highest quality and is actually information people can trust.
  • Floww’s unique drag and drop ingestion method also ensures minimum friction for stakeholders to provide information.
  • In addition to supporting an array of core financial KPIs, Floww’s ‘bespoke KPI’ feature allows companies to present their full picture to investors.
  • Floww creates proprietary benchmark data allowing stakeholders to easily compare performance against country, sector and stage comparables.
  • By processing full financial models Floww has data on actuals as well as forecasts.
How can third-party service providers and financial intermediaries connect to companies on the Floww platform?

Floww’s flexible software design allows it to facilitate and connect parties of many types. In addition to this, LSEG and Floww will be working to connect the Floww platform with LSEG Issuer Services, opening up links through SparkLive and Marketplace

Relationship with LSE

How does this link to LSE’s IPO pipeline and business?
  • LSE will help expand Floww’s network of companies and investors, as well as look for ways to ensure that the network seamlessly interacts with the public market so that there is a smooth funding continuum throughout a company’s growth.
  • Should companies using the Floww platform choose to IPO one day – that is a great result but that is not main goal for this partnership.

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