Genesis raises $200M in Tiger-led round to grow its finance-focused low-code application platform – TechCrunch

Genesis, which has built a low-code/no-code application platform specifically for the financial markets, announced today it has landed a $200 million investment led by Tiger Global Management.

The financing comes 11 months after the company announced it had raised $45 million, as our own Ingrid Lunden reported last March. Interestingly, Genesis had raised less than $5 million prior to last year, mostly bootstrapping its business.

The company’s “buy to build” tech was “developed by, and for, professional coders,” according to Genesis CEO Stephen Murphy. Specifically, to date, Genesis has a total of 50 customers, is used by thousands of developers, and is “trusted” by Citi, B3, ING, Bank of Montreal and London Clearinghouse, according to Murphy. 

The executive declined to reveal at what valuation this latest round was raised or any hard revenue figures, saying only “in under nine months out from our Series B, we have nearly tripled Genesis’ recurring revenue, a clear sign of the massive potential our partners see in our vision.” At the end of 2021, Genesis had 50 employees. Today, it has over 200 employees. The company describes itself as “global” and says it doesn’t have an office it considers its central headquarters. Leadership, it adds, is primarily located in the U.S.

Financial markets require highly-specialized tools that comply with, and excel in, strictly regulated environments, Murphy said. Genesis wants to give financial firms a way to “build and buy” applications with its low-code solution so they can move quickly and more flexibly and efficiently in an effort to gain a competitive edge. Put even more simply, Genesis has built a low-code/no-code platform for financial institutions with the aim of fundamentally changing the way they develop new applications.

“Whether it’s extending the capabilities of legacy applications or building brand new apps or platforms, Genesis gives developers markets-specific reusable components, dev tools and a rich, interactive UI,” Murphy wrote via email, noting that the company’s platform was built on an event-driven architecture and numerous internal and external APIs.

Insight Partners, Accel, GV (formerly Google Ventures), Illuminate Financial, Tribeca Early Stage Partners and Salesforce Ventures also participated in the round.

“The rise of low-code development as a centerpiece of every IT stack is undeniable – the market is predicted to reach $21 billion by 2022 – but what Genesis represents is clearly the next-generation of low code/no code path forward for the highly complex, highly regulated, and extremely valuable financial markets,” said John Curtius, partner at Tiger Global, in a written statement. 

Accel Partner Andrei Brasoveanu believes that demand for Genesis’ offering is only going to increase as large financial institutions “are facing an increasingly competitive market, greater regulatory oversight and increasing user demands.”

The company plans to use the new capital to accelerate the expansion of its platform and developer community and to enhance its go-to-market for its platform growth. It also plans to do more hiring.

While Genesis is currently solely focused on the financial services market, Murphy believes that its technology could expand into other highly regulated markets in the future, like healthcare and manufacturing. 

“The pandemic revealed a crucial need for digital transformation within the financial services industry and served as a shock to the system for a traditionally slow moving sector. So it really has been a turning point for the company and the industry as a whole,” Murphy told TechCrunch. “Having access to this kind of customizable infrastructure is practically non-negotiable.”