Pension financial savings platform Smart secures £75m funding injection

A retirement financial savings platform which beforehand secured backing from Legal & General will this week unveil a $95m (£76m) fundraising led by a New York-based personal fairness investor.

Sky News has learnt that Smart, which was based in 2014, will announce the capital increase on Monday.

It shall be led by Aquiline Capital Partners, which manages over $9bn in belongings and specialises in backing monetary providers and expertise corporations.

The funding deal shall be one of many largest struck by a UK-based fintech this 12 months amid a tougher financing surroundings for early-stage – typically loss-making – start-ups.

Sources mentioned the proceeds of the spherical can be used to finance quite a lot of impending acquisitions.

They may even speed up Smart’s funding in and distribution of its proprietary retirement financial savings expertise platform, Keystone.

Smart’s present buyers, which embrace Chrysalis Investments, Fidelity International Strategic Ventures and Barclays, additionally participated within the spherical, the sources mentioned.

The firm was based by Andrew Evans and Will Wynne, and launched in 2015 in anticipation of giant demand from corporations forward of a ultimate Government deadline for auto-enrolment in 2018.

It owns and operates one of many 4 main UK auto-enrolment grasp trusts – Smart Pension – which serves greater than 1m savers and 70,000 employers.

Smart’s development has been fuelled partly by the rising regulatory requirement for people to save lots of for retirement on the identical time that ageing populations place better strain on authorities funds around the globe.

As a part of the funding spherical, Charles Janeway of Aquiline is becoming a member of Smart’s board as a non-executive director.

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One insider mentioned the capital injection had taken place at solely a modest low cost to its most up-to-date fundraising.

Smart has over £5.5bn in belongings underneath administration and expects this to exceed £10bn within the close to future.

It has vital worldwide ambitions, having already struck partnerships with establishments in Ireland and a part of the large Zurich Insurance Group.

In response to an enquiry from Sky News, Mr Evans and Mr Wynne claimed that Smart was “the global leader in retirement technology, and our industry-leading platform, Keystone, is being deployed by the biggest, most successful financial institutions around the world”.

“This is a $62 trillion global sector waiting to be disrupted, and we are uniquely positioned to take advantage of that.”

Bankers at Lazard suggested Smart on the funding spherical.