PrimaryBid, the fintech which had aspirations of joining the ranks of British unicorns, is exploring a sale after receiving expressions of interest from potential buyers.
Sky News has learnt that PrimaryBid, which counts London Stock Exchange Group and the SoftBank Vision Fund among its investors, is working with advisers to field interest in a takeover.
City sources said the process was being conducted on an accelerated basis and that if concluded, it would be at a steep discount to the $500m valuation which it attracted three years ago.
PrimaryBid was founded with a simple but compelling vision to help ordinary investors gatecrash the closed City ranks of corporate fundraisings and flotations by aggregating demand from retail shareholders into a single, enlarged order.
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That mission to democratise access to public markets won support from politicians and market participants.
It made significant progress towards this goal during the pandemic, notably securing a slice of a £2bn share sale announced by Compass Group, the FTSE 100 contract caterer.
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Since then, it has worked on hundreds of deals and helped raise roughly $2bn in equity for listed companies.
However, it has been hit by a severe slowdown in equity capital markets activity, prompting it to launch a strategic review and hire US-based market infrastructure specialist Rosenblatt Securities to evaluate its strategic options.
Sources said on Friday that it had received a number of expressions of interest about a deal from financial institutions and other investors.
PrimaryBid has been facing into the weakest IPO market in years, which it has been attempting to mitigate by striking partnerships with the likes of US fintech group SoFi, as well as European groups.
It has now reshaped its UK operations and stepped back from regulated activities, having for several months explored a deal with LSEG, one of its largest shareholders, to license its retail capital-raising technology.
For some time, the company was chaired by Sir Donald Brydon, the veteran businessman who also used to chair the stock exchange’s parent company.
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Financial News, the trade publication, reported on Friday that LSEG had written down the value of its 7.2% stake in PrimaryBid by 87%, implying that the business now had a valuation of just £56m.
Founded in 2016, PrimaryBid has raised roughly $250m during its nine years in existence.
The company declined to comment on Friday.
