IVM secures a new $3.4mio funding round, readies AI powered Dashboard
The recent funding round was led by SixThirty Ventures and includes the participation of Altair Capital, Blackwood Ventures, Begin Capital alongside Geekdomfund, Vibranium VC and a number of other existing investors. The latest financing will enable IVM Markets to ramp up sales and customer success and deliver cutting-edge AI-based features and analytics to their clients.
Pictured from left to right: Volodymyr Gubskyi, Co-Founder, IVM markets and Ildar Farkhshatov, Co-Founder and CTO, IVM Markets
IVM Markets provides an AI-powered idea generation SaaS structured products solution for brokers and asset managers. Sales professionals use IVM Markets to attract new clients and expand wallet share by discovering new product ideas with higher investment upside and reduced downside risk, resulting in increased sales productivity and higher traded volumes of structured products.
A recent report by PwC “The Future of Sales” describes how the global markets sales function is transforming at investment banks due to de personalization: “…getting client traction is generally becoming more difficult. Electronic execution and digital interactions de-personalise relationships and risk making business entirely transactional. There is a consensus that the required skillset of a markets salesperson is changing. Far less emphasis is placed on traditional relationship management.”
Many similar insights apply to the distributors of structured products today.
In light of that, IVM interviewed its advisor clients on the challenges they face in their quest for alpha, what they expect from the broker’s salespeople covering them today, and how IVM is helping them in this regard.
“We value the real time, bank agnostic, independent pricing capabilities that IVM provides. We mostly use structured notes within a portfolio construction framework to implement for clients who have access to multiple brokers. IVM allows us to provide pricing independent of unknown distribution costs and seek best execution pricing with certainty.”– Francois Strydom, Portfolio Manager at Momentum Securities
“Many of those we spoke to painted a picture of a ‘price only’ market, i.e. price as the sole factor in determining execution venue. However, it is also evident that clients still value information, insights and advice even in flow markets, and that salespeople that provide this think they generate better business from it. Providing ideas and insights can still positively influence flow sales.”– PWC
“At Macro Wealth Advisors, we aim to maintain a 10-note portfolio across 10 thematic stock basket plays, looking for the best possible risk and reward. For thematic stock basket selection using screeners and manually choosing 10 baskets, we may end up with 6 out of 10 baskets issuers don’t want to price, and low coupons for the remaining 4. IVM has shown us a better way. IVM uses AI-powered stock curation that matches the thematic criteria and is quotable by issuers. In IVM, we then optimize the thematic list to find the best coupons and protection balance. This process even assists us in regulatory audits by explaining why certain baskets were chosen over others. Our clients care about maximizing upside and minimizing downside in a systematic way. Implementing the IVM solution has helped us do this by improving our note design process and significantly reducing the time involved from idea to executed trade. The learning curve for the IVM solution is not daunting and mastery was achieved in a reasonable timeframe. We already have access to a multi-issuer pricer, but it doesn’t compare to the IVM solution. At first glance, IVM seems too good to be true, but the power of it is in the technology. This is AI making analysis possible that you always wished for. And now it’s here.” – Owen Stewart, President & Investment Advisor Representative at Macro Wealth Advisors
“Increased adoption of technology solutions is disintermediating manual processes, facilitating trading electronification and supporting advanced analytics on both client and sales side.” – PWC
“We got comfortable using the software, it was easy using IVM. IVM allows to have a more systematic framework for finding the most optimal investment. Previously we were only choosing between the ideas which our bankers presented to us and frankly we were guessing. So, we tried to use some spreadsheets to value the options embedded in the structured products. We try to get pricing for similar options from other sources. It was kind of guessing, we were not super happy with that. That’s why our volumes were really low. When re-investing after a maturity or an auto call I think it is kind of NONSENSE to just COPY/PASTE the product that one did before. With the tool set we used to have [before IVM], it was impossible to identify opportunity proactively. When our product gets expired, we just invested the proceeds elsewhere, say buying some stocks and keep waiting for right moment to enter the structured product market again, which of course it’s suboptimal from the allocation point of view. Because our portfolio allocation was constantly shifting. When sending the final reverse inquiry for auction, we asked our broker and the independent broker using IVM for quotes for similar product and the difference was surprising. We were expecting half of a percent, but the difference was more than 2%, which is like super significant, when we are speaking about low double digit coupons. So, the benefit of working with independent brokers using IVM is super obvious.” – ALEXANDER LIS, Chief Investment Officer at Social Discovery Ventures
“Sales needs to be empowered with advanced data analytics tools. At a minimum, powerful data analytics can lend credibility to a ‘gut feeling’. However, it can also generate new insights, support strategic decisions.” – PWC
“We trade mostly structured products on the broad indexes. Not stocks. An optimizer gives a number of diverse basket options with optimal coupons instead of manually just trying 1,2,3 baskets of index yourself. So you cannot use gut feel or some volatility screening to pick the optimal basket. You have to do the iteration work in an optimizer systematically. We like that in an optimizer you can optimize together with the basket every single parameter of the structured product and also the maturity. You just cannot do that manually. We already have access to a multi issuer pricer. But we like structured product distributors who can provide us access to optimization capabilities.” – RAHUL GARACH, Investment Analyst, PWM Advisors
“The structured products market is evolving from generic calendar issuances to a more customized approach. However, many market players still continue to trade the same products linked to well- known indexes like SPX/SX5E/UKX or companies like Nestlé/ Roche/ Novartis or Apple/ Google/ Amazon, without sufficient research on allocation, potential upside/downside, and maximizing alpha. Current equity structured products often lack differentiation, with many simply re- trading past deals irrespective of market conditions or screening for high volatility stocks. IVM Markets addresses this gap with their AI-powered idea generation SaaS for structured products.” – VOLODYMYR GUBSKYI, Co-Founder, IVM Markets
“The AI-powered stock research optimizer helps advisors conduct thorough research before sending reverse inquiries to their brokers/asset managers. Some advisors prefer using these tools self-service, while others want the research done for them. The AI Dashboard will accommodate both. The platform learns from numerous user-generated iterations across thematic baskets, maturities, and protection levels. By understanding buyers’ evolving needs and their research processes, the AI identifies the most promising investment opportunities into a dashboard for advisors who want this work to be done for them.” – ILDAR FARKHSHATOV, CTO and Co-Founder of IVM Markets
“With a turbulent economic and geopolitical environment becoming the new normal, and an aging demographic headed to retirement, the combination of downside protection and enhanced returns offered by structured products is more relevant than ever before. Vlad, Ildar and the IVM Markets team are seasoned industry professionals who have built a world-class platform to scale personalization for savings, protection and income needs of investors. We are excited to partner with them on their journey to help banks, wealth managers, insurers and advisors differentiate and drive growth in the structured products industry.” – CHANDRESH IYER, General Partner at SixThirty Ventures
