Versana has announced the addition of four new banks – Deutsche Bank, Morgan Stanley, US Bancorp and Wells Fargo – as investors in its digital data and technology platform for the US$5 trillion syndicated loan market. These institutions have invested capital, intend to contribute loan data and will become clients of the platform.
In this funding round, Versana reports it raised US$40 million of new equity capital, which includes follow-on investments from founding investors Bank of America, Citi and JP Morgan.
Versana was created to address perceived operational inefficiencies and technological fragmentation in the US leveraged loan market. The Versana platform, which launched late last year, is billed as a real-time, multi-tenant solution centralising corporate loan data flowing directly from administrative agents’ books and records. By providing greater transparency into loan level details and lender portfolio positions, Versana is designed to facilitate straight-through processing and long-term, scalable market growth, with a view of enabling participants to convert from legacy manual processes to a state-of-the art, self-service platform that lays the foundation for future innovation.
“We’re thrilled to welcome our new investor banks to Versana and appreciate the tremendous value they will bring to our platform,” said Versana’s founding CEO, Cynthia Sachs. “We now have seven of the top 10 major US agent banks committed to our game-changing digital data platform, further validating our scalability and mission to modernise the loan market.”
The addition of three more administrative agents – Deustche Bank, Morgan Stanley and Wells Fargo – is expected to increase Versana’s future deal coverage for all market participants. As a trustee, particularly for CLOs which comprise 70% of the institutional loan market, US Bancorp is Versana’s first buy side-focused investor who will assist in creating the network effect with the asset management community to accelerate product adoption.
Sachs continued, “Converting from analogue to real-time digital processes through a transparent and centralised platform will greatly improve data quality and streamline system fragmentation. With the addition of our four new investors, we expect to have more than 75% of US loan market deals on our platform in real-time, an enormous achievement considering we launched the company only one year ago.”
Mike Weir, US head of loan trading at Deutsche Bank, says, “The innovation that Versana is bringing to market is exactly what’s needed to increase velocity and spur growth for the entire industry. We are glad to join our peers in this effort to propel the market forward.”
Last year also saw Symphony partner with Digital Asset to create straight through processing (STP) workflows aimed at tackling information mismatch, trade breaks, human errors and the lack of appropriate collaboration tools in the syndicated loans space.
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