IEX, a rapidly growing equity trading venue dedicated to institutionalizing fairness in the financial markets, announced today it has completed a $75 million round of funding led by Spark Capital. The round included broad participation from a cross-section of investors, including Bain Capital Ventures, MassMutual Ventures, the corporate venture capital arm of Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company, and global investment manager Franklin Resources, Inc. Other participants in this round include private investment firms Cleveland Capital Management and TDF Ventures, and renowned visionaries and entrepreneurs Jim Clark (Netscape) and Steve Wynn (Wynn Resorts). The financing will be used to pursue registration as a U.S. national exchange and to explore other opportunities to leverage IEX's unique brand, capabilities and market position.

'Our intention from day one was to challenge the status quo by building a market that prioritizes the needs of traditional investors and issuer companies,' said IEX Group Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder Brad Katsuyama. 'We are encouraged by our recent growth, which has been driven by both investors and their brokers. This additional capital enables us to build and operate a world-class stock exchange.'

Since Q1 2014, IEX has tripled its daily trading volume, and in recent weeks, participant volume has exceeded 100 million shares per day.

Spark Capital General Partner Alex Finkelstein will join IEX Group's Board of Directors as part of the financing. 'The best way to truly improve the way that the financial markets work is by giving investors and brokers an opportunity to vote with their trades for a fairer marketplace,' said Finkelstein. 'We believe in IEX's vision of next-generation capital markets, and we're confident that the IEX team will successfully change the way that Wall Street operates for the better.'

'We chose to partner with Spark Capital because, like IEX, they are a trust-based firm that is focused on the entrepreneur's mission.' said Katsuyama. 'From the very beginning, they showed a meaningful commitment to supporting our vision for the future of capital markets. Their history of helping companies such as Twitter and Wayfair accelerate the network effect of adoption has parallels to scaling a successful stock exchange.'

IEX Group's consortium of institutional investors also includes The Capital Group, Brandes Investment Partners, Greenlight Capital, Senator Investment Group, Pershing Square Capital, Maverick Capital, Scoggin Capital Management, Belfer Management, Kistler Associates and Third Point Partners.

'We feel extremely fortunate to bring together such an unprecedented and unique group of investors who believe in a common vision ' to build a stock exchange in the best interests of companies and investors,' said Katsuyama.


ABOUT IEX

IEX is the first equity trading venue seeded by a consortium of buy-side investors, including mutual funds, hedge funds, and family offices. Their unique ownership consortium represents a cross-section of traditional investors who are all dedicated to a fair and balanced market that works for all participants. IEX operates a fair-access platform for any qualified broker dealer, and was built on the principle of investor protection, delivered through its proprietary anti-colocation architecture and simplified pricing and rule set. IEX was featured in the best-selling book, Flash Boys, written by Michael Lewis.
Learn more at: www.iextrading.com

ABOUT SPARK CAPITAL

Spark Capital is a bi-coastal, boutique venture capital firm that partners with bold entrepreneurs who are passionate about reaching millions of people through new ideas in design and technology. Founded in 2005, Spark Capital manages approximately $1,825,000,000 across five funds. We are in Boston, New York, and San Francisco, and we invest wherever we see the right opportunities. We are currently investing Spark IV, a $450,000,000 fund raised in 2013 and Spark Capital Growth Fund, a $375,000,000 fund raised in 2014. Spark Capital focuses on Internet and mobile investments across the following key categories: advertising & monetization, commerce & services, content & media, financial services, hardware & infrastructure, mobile and social. Some of Spark Capital's most notable investments include Adap.tv (acquired by AOL), AdMeld (acquired by Google), Oculus (acquired by Facebook), OMGPOP (acquired by Zynga), Tumblr (acquired by Yahoo!), and Twitter (NYSE: TWTR). For more information, visit www.sparkcapital.com.