Pico acquires Redline Trading Solutions

By Edlyn Cardoza

Pico, a leading provider of mission-critical technology, data and analytic services for the financial markets community, recently announced that it has acquired Redline Trading Solutions, a high-performance trading and market data software solutions provider.

The acquisition marks a key milestone in Pico’s vision to become a leading provider of technology, software, data, and analytics solutions to the financial markets. The addition of Redline’s high performance, multi-asset software solutions will provide access to a common API for global markets, both real-time and historical, delivered via Pico’s global network. The combined offering reduces complexity by allowing trading firms to optimize market access and coverage and trading stack performance seamlessly.

“As the trading environment becomes more globalized and continues to produce increasing amounts of data, clients are seeking greater efficiency in market infrastructure services and data consumption. Financial institutions want a trusted and globally comprehensive technology partner who understands their business, the market landscape and how to apply technology solutions. Combining Redline’s premier ultra-low latency trading and software solutions with Pico’s broad infrastructure, cloud and data offering, and industry leading Corvil Analytics, positions Pico uniquely to address these client needs and market challenges,” said Jarrod Yuster, Chairman, Founder and Co-CEO of Pico.

Redline provides ultra-low latency software solutions and common APIs to over 180 global venues serving a marquee client roster, including global banks, quantitative hedge funds, electronic trading firms, ETF market-makers, and exchanges. Meeting the requirements of these clients and seamlessly adapting to their evolving needs in the future drive the mission and goals of both organizations. 

Continued investments will extend the Redline service offering to fully and globally comprehensively deliver real-time and historical normalized financial market data, including consolidated, delayed or end-of-day formats via wire protocol or API. Delivery will be available in Pico’s financial cloud, any remote location or into the public cloud. This will enable Pico’s clients to adopt a broad suite of common solutions in all regions delivered and supported by Pico’s global 24×7 operations and service model.

“I have admired Redline and what they have accomplished over the years,” continued Yuster. “Pico and Redline are aligned in our values, culture and expertise, and share a deep passion for meeting the needs of clients. We are excited to welcome the Redline team to Pico and to bring together two high performance technology engineering teams. There is a significant addressable market for global data consumption via software and a common API, and we will continue to invest in Redline further leveraging Pico’s global network and infrastructure coverage.”

“Pico has built one of the most comprehensive global platforms in our industry, and I am excited that Redline will now be part of their ongoing success,” said Mark Skalabrin, Founder and CEO of Redline. “We have partnered on past initiatives, and we will now be able to access Pico’s globally deployed service organization, leading analytics and infrastructure footprint to scale our offerings to more geographies. We foresee great collaboration between our teams in the coming years in order to continue to meet clients’ evolving needs.”

The acquisition will contribute to Pico’s growth strategy by adding Redline’s fully recurring revenue stream and high-margin business through increased client opportunity and further expanding in-house expertise. It follows the successful integration of Corvil Analytics, the best-in-class financial markets trade monitoring and performance platform, which extended Pico’s expertise into analytics and data science.

The financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed. Redline had previously been backed by GS Growth, the growth investing arm of Goldman Sachs.

Jefferies LLC acted as an exclusive financial advisor, and DLA Piper served as legal advisor to Pico in connection with the transaction. Broadhaven acted as an exclusive financial advisor, and Davis Malm served as legal advisor to Redline in connection with this transaction.