Australian digital capital raising platform (DCRP) Blu Horseshoe has formally launched today to help connect investors with post-IPO raisings on the ASX.
The company said that it aims to provide an unconflicted pipeline for sophisticated investors to access secondary deals, for brokers to expand the universe of investment opportunities for clients, and for companies to maximise their raise capabilities.
According to Blu Horseshoe CEO, Antony Tolfts, the platform has received a strong response from the market, having already executed 118 deals since June while in soft launch mode.
“Our goal when we opened the platform in June was to execute 60 deals in our first year,” he said.
“We were able to achieve nearly double that in just over four months, and our pipeline is only getting stronger. It’s been very exciting to see the enthusiasm from both brokers and investors as we prove our model in the Australian market.”
Blu Horseshoe noted that investor access to post-IPO raisings on the ASX has traditionally been patchy and dependent on broker relationships, despite dwarfing IPOs with $60 billion raised in post-IPO last year compared to just $13 billion in IPOs.
Mr Tolfts argued that the current fragmented landscape doesn’t benefit anyone with broker access to deals dependent on their relationships with companies, while companies’ distribution is limited to their chosen broker’s clientele.
“The concept of a DCRP is not new — but we are doing things a bit differently,” he explained.
“Blu Horseshoe does not offer any other products other than the DCRP, nor do we compete with brokers by bringing our own deals to the platform. Our team comes from a deep financial services background, and while our technology is well designed and simple to set up and use, we’re not positioning ourselves as a technology company — service is first and foremost what we offer.”
The company’s founding investors include Aspermont, International Pacific Capital, and Singapore-based, Spark Plus. Alongside Mr Tolfts, its core team includes operations chief, Pathhik Vora, and chief product director, Abi Obasanya.
“The next 12 months will be focused on embedding Blu Horseshoe as a core element of the secondary market infrastructure in Australia,” said Mr Tolfts.
“After that, we’ll see what makes sense. It’s a very exciting time for a company like ours.”
Jon Bragg
Jon Bragg is a journalist for Momentum Media's Investor Daily, nestegg and ifa. He enjoys writing about a wide variety of financial topics and issues and exploring the many implications they have on all aspects of life.
