Nasdaq has formed a venture capital unit to invest in financial technology startups. The new business unit, called Nasdaq Ventures, is focusing on startups that could help one of its five key business lines: listings, data & index, market infrastructure technology, corporate solutions technology, and capital markets operation.
The new fund is led by Gary Offner, a former managing director and head of strategic investments at Morgan Stanley. Companies already in its portfolio include Chain, a blockchain infrastructure provider, Digital Reasoning, a machine intelligence company, and Hanweck, a real-time risk analytics firm.
Nasdaq said the unit intends to invest between $1 million and $10 million per company. It is looking in particular for companies trying to do something clever in areas such as machine learning and artificial intelligence, digital transfer/payment/transaction processing, and data and analytics.
