Pico signs agreement with Golden Gate Capital for $200m investment

By Edlyn Cardoza

Pico, a leading provider of mission-critical technology services, software, data, and analytics for the financial markets community, recently announced it has signed an agreement for a $200 million strategic investment from Golden Gate Capital, a leading private equity investment firm. The capital will be used to pursue strategic M&A opportunities that further enhance Pico’s comprehensive global ecosystem of technology and services and other general corporate purposes.

“We have made significant investments in global expansion, product innovation, operational excellence and in our organization, thereby laying the foundation to support the next wave of substantial growth. We are thrilled to have Golden Gate Capital as an investor and strategic partner supporting us to continue leveraging our leading global technology and data platform to provide additional services for our clients,” said Jarrod Yuster, Chairman, Founder and CEO of Pico. “Golden Gate Capital’s deep financial services experience and track record of successful acquisitions at their portfolio companies will help advance our strategy.” 

Pico was founded in 2009 to address the macro trends in the electronification of markets across all asset classes. Since then, it has consistently anticipated market requirements and now offers comprehensive financial services trading cloud infrastructure, connectivity, data, software, and analytic solutions spanning 55 data centres traversing all key global market centres in the Americas, Europe, and Asia. Pico sits at the centre of a complex ecosystem powering mission-critical applications for more than 430 clients, including the top 25 global banks, 39 exchanges, electronic market makers, and premier asset managers.

With this investment, Pico will continue to build on its strategic investments in its high-performance, resilient infrastructure and extend its data offering and market coverage across all regions and asset classes. Pico has a proven record of acquiring and integrating companies into its technology platform. In 2019 it acquired market-leading trading and enterprise analytics solution Corvil Analytics and has continued to enhance its capabilities. It is replicating this strategy with the January 2022 acquisition of Redline Trading Solutions, a multi-trading and market data software solutions provider. Strengthening its technology platform with Redline gives Pico a significant opportunity to access the $36 billion addressable market for global data consumption, in addition to the growing $130 billion market infrastructure addressable market.

“Pico is an impressive company, underscored by a compelling portfolio of technology services, sophisticated client network, unparalleled client experience and proven M&A track record,” said Dan Haspel, a Managing Director at Golden Gate Capital. “We look forward to partnering with Jarrod, the Board and the rest of Pico’s management team to accelerate the Company’s momentum by pursuing additional acquisitions and making additional investments in the business that enable Pico to deepen its leadership in the market and continue to capture additional growth opportunities.”

Existing Pico strategic investors and clients include Goldman Sachs Asset Management, Wells Fargo Strategic Capital, J.P. Morgan, UBS, CE Innovation Capital, DRW Venture Capital, Intel Capital, Singapore-based global investor EDBI, Nomura and Chicago Trading Company.