Ctrl Alt
News Savings And Investment
Ctrl Alt raises £2.2m to democratise access to alternative assets
The fintech is hoping to lower the barrier to entry for investing in alternatives and help financial institutions offer more competitive investment options
Ctrl Alt, a fintech offering software for investment platforms to provide alternative assets, has raised £2.2m in seed funding.
The London-based fintech, which launched just shy of a year ago, was founded in 2020 by former Morgan Stanley employees Matt Ong (CEO) and Jordan McMullen (chief operating officer) alongside former Cogo head of marketing Ele Ward (chief marketing officer).
Matt Acheson, former lead at Revolut and Shares, joined the founding team earlier this year as chief product officer.
The funding round, led by Forward Partners and Middlegame Ventures, aims to “empower fintechs and investment platforms” to diversify their investment offerings and move beyond traditional options to include fractionalised assets.
Offering products including API and white label capabilities, Ctrl Alt aims to help both consumers looking to access a typically exclusive form of investment and financial services wanting to expand beyond stocks and bonds.
“A culture of exclusivity, overly restrictive entry requirements and archaic processes have meant access to investing in things like property and green energy and more have traditionally been dominated by the super-rich and institutional investors,” Ong said.
“A diversified portfolio should play a key role in any investment strategy and it’s not right that alternative assets, a typically robust form of investment, remain in the old world of money.”
Having previously worked in the alternative assets space at Morgan Stanley and Credit Suisse, Ong told AltFi he became passionate about opening up access to investing in alternatives, having been frustrated by the barriers to entry, both from a capital perspective and the “endless” legal paperwork.
“My ambition was to build Ctrl Alt to solve both sides of the problem via leveraging disruptive technology and combining it with traditional financial services,” Ong told AltFi.
“This enables us to solve the problem of access for both end investors who don’t otherwise have access and the opportunity for asset suppliers looking for alternative ways to raise capital for their assets.”
Forward Partners and Middlegame Ventures led the round alongside angel investors and follow-up funds including Enterprise Ireland, Algorand Ventures, 365.fintech, Syndicate Room, Marc Cohen (Unbundled VC), Omid Ashtari (ex-Google) and Alex Macdonald (co-founder of sequel & Velocity Black).
“At Forward, we see a massive opportunity to democratise access to financial investments for eligible investors who have hitherto been locked out of these markets due to large tickets, administrative complexity and a lack of access,” Forward Partners senior investor Megha Prakash said.
“Ctrl Alt promises to broaden access to a large range of investments. With a strong background in structuring financial products and his digital-native, and wealth of experience working in the regulated space, Matt is a great founder to tackle this opportunity and we are excited to be backing him.”
