This week we were joined by Umerah Akram, Head of Private Markets at the London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG) and Martijn de Wever, Founder of Floww to dive deep on how they’re changing how private markets are run.
I must say, we’ve seen quite a few firms come up in Europe lately trying to disrupt exactly this. And some have looked quite similar, if not indistinguishable. So when I first heard about Floww, I was suspicious.
But I do actually think there’s something to pay attention to here.
‘Cos Floww has partnered with LSEG, yes - that LSEG. The London Stock Exchange Group. And they’re not playing the game of building a centralized platform for private markets, but rather the game of empowering the decentralized nature of private markets.
“It's in nobody's interest to have a centralized market. It is more in everybody's interest to take away the pain problems of running liquidity events. I belive you either disrupt the current market players or you empower them. Hey, I'm much more a believer of empowering players.
Martijn de Wever, Founder of Floww
But what’s that Floww x LSEG partnership about? What’s the stock exchange getting into this for? We asked Umerah, Head of Private Markets, to take us through their motivations:
We are looking at creating a new type of wholesale market in the UK, which the government is committed to and is referred to as the Intermission Trading Venue by the UK Treasury, which is really about giving private companies opportunity to access periodic liquidity and we will be leveraging some of our public market assets to deliver that.
Umerah Akram, Head of Private Markets at LSEG
Now that’s exciting! … At least it is to me! 🤓 Join us in experiencing the vision that LSEG and Floww are pioneering for the private markets by listening to the full episode below or sign-up for our joint event on the 15th of June 3:30 CET.
You can also listen on your favorite podcast platforms: linktree.com/theeuropeanvc
EUVC #176: Rewriting how private markets are run w/ Umerah & Martijn from LSEG & Floww 🎧