Founded nearly a decade ago, smart will announce this week that US investor Aquiline Capital Partners is leading a $95 million funding round, Sky News understands.
The retirement savings platform, which has so far secured backing from Legal & General, is announcing a $95 million (£76 million) funding round this week led by a New York-based private equity investor.
Sky News has learned that smart, which was founded in 2014, will announce a capital increase on Monday.
Led by Aquiline Capital Partners, which manages over $9 billion in assets and specializes in backing financial services and technology companies.
The funding deal is one of the largest deals the UK-based fintech firm has signed this year as funding conditions become more challenging for early-stage (often unprofitable) startups.
Proceeds from the round will be used to fund a number of impending acquisitions, people familiar with the matter said.
It will also accelerate investment and distribution in Keystone, Smart’s proprietary retirement savings technology platform.
Smart’s existing investors, including Chrysalis Investments, Fidelity International Strategic Ventures and Barclays, also participated in the round, according to people familiar with the matter.
The company, founded by Andrew Evans and Will Wynn, was established in 2015 in anticipation of huge demand from businesses ahead of the 2018 government auto-registration deadline.
The company owns and operates Smart Pensions, one of the four major self-registered master trusts in the UK, serving over 1 million savers and 70,000 employers.
Smart’s growth is driven in part by rising regulatory requirements for retirement savings for individuals, while aging populations are putting further pressure on government finances around the world.
As part of the funding round, Aquiline’s Charles Janeway will join Smart’s board as a non-executive director.
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A person said the capital injection came at a very small discount compared to the latest round of funding.
Smart manages over £5.5 billion in assets and expects this to exceed £10 billion in the near future.
The company has big international ambitions and already has partnerships with Irish institutions and parts of the giant Zurich Insurance Group.
In response to an inquiry from Sky News, Evans and Wynn said Smart is “a global leader in retirement technology, and our industry-leading platform, Keystone, is one of the largest and most successful companies in the world. It has been introduced by financial institutions that are .
“This is a $62 trillion global sector waiting to be destroyed, and we are uniquely positioned to capitalize on it,” they added.
Lazard’s bankers smartly advised on the funding round.
