In other news, Copper has a new COO, InvestX adds staff, RegAlytics gets seed money, and ACA Group taps State Street.
Whistleblower Led SEC to Ongoing Fraud
A whistleblower that published an online report about “an ongoing fraud” wound up with a $14 million payday from the SEC, according to the latest award announcement from the regulator.
The whistleblower went to the SEC after posting the report “and was persistent in reaching out to the staff, prompted the opening of an investigation which resulted in a successful enforcement action and the return of millions of dollars to harmed investors,” according to SEC officials.
The whistleblower “voluntarily provided original information to the Commission that led to the successful enforcement of the Covered Action,” according to the SEC report. “Claimant 1 voluntarily provided the First Enforcement Attorney with a copy of the report three days after posting it on the Internet and before receiving any request from the Commission.”
The investigation was launched internally and the SEC enforcement investigative attorney discovered “the report through his own Internet search, and not as a result of receiving Claimant 1’s submission,” according to the SEC.
The report “contained analysis derived from a large number of publicly-available and non-public sources,” and the allegations “ended up being the basis of the charges that the Commission ultimately brought against the company and its CEO,” according to the SEC. The SEC concluded that the “original information that was sufficiently specific, credible, and timely … ”
Since 2021, the SEC has awarded “approximately $1.2 billion to 249 individuals … All payments are made out of an investor protection fund established by Congress that is financed entirely through monetary sanctions paid to the SEC by securities law violators. No money has been taken or withheld from harmed investors to pay whistleblower awards. … Whistleblower awards can range from 10 percent to 30 percent of the money collected when the monetary sanctions exceed $1 million,” according to the SEC.
Copper Taps Citi for New COO
Sabrina Wilson
Copper has appointed Sabrina Wilson as its new chief operating officer (COO), and she assumes the new post immediately, officials say. Most recently, Wilson was at Citi.
Copper.co was founded in 2018 by Dmitry Tokarev, currently its CEO.
Copper “provides a gateway into the digital asset space for institutional investors by offering custody, prime brokerage, and settlements across 450 digital assets and more than 45 exchanges,” the vendor says in a statement.
Wilson is a financial services industry veteran.
At Citi, she was the global co-head of the futures, over-the-counter (OTC) clearing and FX prime brokerage business, according to Copper’s statement.
Her career history also includes tours at Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan and Deutsche Bank, according to the statement. — L.Ch
InvestX Fills Key Posts via Hires from Liquidnet & Luminex
InvestX, a private equity marketplace, has appointed Jonathan Clark president, USA and Dan Sanders, executive vice president, private markets.
Clark joins from Luminex, where he was CEO and president for six years, according to an InvestX statement, which also notes that Sanders was previously the head of business development for institutional investment for Liquidnet and head of execution services in the Americas for Citi.
“Clark will be responsible for managing InvestX’s go-to-market teams, leading efforts in client success and overall US operations,” according to the InvestX statement.
Sanders “brings more than 25 years of finance, trading, equity, technology and sales experience, and has built significant client relationships over the years,” InvestX says in its statement.
“They each bring years of experience, skills, integrity, and proven leadership that will help us continue to make a meaningful impact in the wealth management industry and to our broker-dealer clients as we work towards the electronification and democratization of the process for investing in pre-IPO companies,” says Marcus New, the company’s founder and CEO, in a prepared statement.
“Together, these leaders will support the company’s growth and further enhance its ability to provide sell-side broker-dealers access to the insatiable demand for this asset class,” New says.
Based in Vancouver, B.C., InvestX, which was founded in 2014, offers sell-side firms “access [to] unbiased information, and [the ability to] trade shares of institutional quality private equity, without the traditional multi-million-dollar investment minimums,” according to the company statement. The InvestX GEM trading platform serves as the venue for broker-dealers and advisors. . — L.Ch
RegAlytics Scores Seed Round Funding via First Rate Ventures
RegTech vendor RegAlytics got a seed round of funding from First Rate Ventures, a Dallas/Fort Worth, Texas-based fintech-focused venture capital fund, officials say.
The RegAlytics investment is part of the recently launched $25 million venture capital fund of First Rate Ventures, which led the seed investment round.
Mary Kopczynski
Mary Kopczynski, CEO and founder of RegAlytics “and her team of founders have created a people-first culture that we believe in,” says Marshall Smith, managing director for First Rate Ventures, in a prepared statement. “In addition to providing capital, the award-winning First Rate ArtIE technology platform will be utilized to transform and expedite the platform delivery and support to RegAlytics, offering rapid expansion to cover regulations in additional sectors.”
The RegAlytics mission is to simplify regulatory compliance and it offers “vetted regulatory data from over 5,000 regulators every day. The data can be accessed via their online platform or their application programming interface (API),” officials say. Several fintech and governance, risk, and compliance solutions vendors “have embedded RegAlytics directly into their own platforms.”
First Rate Ventures is focused on early-stage start-ups in North America, Europe, and Asia that offer wealth, investment, regulatory, and mortgage technologies, officials say.
ACA Group Hires Annie Morris from State Street
Annie Morris
The ACA Group reports that Annie Morris has joined the firm as chief product officer (CPO). Morris is a financial services industry veteran, with “25 years of experience in product strategy and financial technology,” according to the group’s statement.
“Most recently, she worked at State Street Bank where she was the head of product strategy for the asset servicing business, orchestrating cross-product solutions, industry intelligence, and client engagement,” according to ACA Group.
Morris also worked in product management for Interactive Data (now ICE Data Services) and led Linedata’s North Americas business, “overseeing front-to-back software services for hedge funds, asset managers, and fund administrators in the region,” officials say.
Her new mandate includes heading ACA’s “integrated product strategy and vision,” per the firm.
She will “utilize her understanding of financial services and the technology for front, back, and middle offices to scale solutions to elevate ACA’s product suite to the next level,” the statement notes. . — L.Ch
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