SSimple completes investment round and appoints Matthew Cook as chairman


SSImple, a SaaS DLT platform that aims to fundamentally change the way standing settlement instructions (SSIs) are stored, shared, and enriched across the financial services industry, today revealed that it has successfully concluded an angel funding round, thereby bolstering SSImple's potential as it actively drives forward its business expansion efforts.

This significant milestone arrives just ahead of a forthcoming major client announcement.

Leading the investment is David Little, a seasoned fintech expert and serial angel investor. With a career spanning more than 25 years in capital markets, Mr Little has held prominent positions at both executive and board levels within the financial and software services sectors. His wealth of experience has led to a record of accomplishment in early-stage investments, including two that have achieved unicorn status. Presently, Mr Little holds the position of Chairman at Aora Law and serves as a non-executive director (NED) for several high-growth start-ups such as OTCX, Century Tech, and ETA Green Power.

In addition, Matthew Cook has been appointed as SSImple Chairman - effective immediately.

With more than two decades of industry experience, Mr Cook’s most recent role was at SWIFT, where he held global responsibilities. His tenure involved leading key strategic and industry-wide initiatives focused on enhancing settlement efficiency for international securities and FX transactions. He began his career in investment banking with UBS and Credit Suisse, occupying senior roles across diverse operational domains such as equities, FX, and OTC products. Presently, Mr Cook is actively involved in angel investing in innovative fintech start-ups operating within the capital markets arena. Furthermore, he lends his expertise as an advisor and NED to numerous companies within his growing investment portfolio.

Matthew Cook, SSImple Chairman, said, “As the industry grapples with shorter settlement cycles and maintains a strong focus on reducing transactional costs and friction, this is an exciting time to be joining SSimple. Accurate, authenticated, and timely SSIs have long been a consistent challenge, hindering the realisation of a fully straight-through-processing (STP) vision within the industry. This hindrance has been exacerbated by error-prone manual processes and costly, outdated legacy platforms. Leveraging SSImple’s innovative SaaS approach, we present a cost-efficient effective and readily implementable solution across multiple asset classes for the 21st century, with the goal being to transform this vision into reality.”

Bill Meenaghan, SSImple CEO, said, “I am pleased to share that SSImple has concluded its angel funding round, accompanied by Matthew’s acceptance of the Chairman’s role. These advancements empower us to automate the archaic SSI process for an expanded range of firms. This, in turn, will further enhance the accuracy, speed, and security of the settlement process, particularly with the imminent arrival of T+1. I look forward to seeing what we can achieve together in the coming months.”


By on Tue, 29 Aug 2023 10:27:00 GMT
Original link