London's Grafton Capital invests £7 million in Third Financial, taking majority ownership

Private equity firm Grafton Capital has invested £7 million into Third Financial, a London-based investment platform and software provider, taking majority ownership of the startup. About £1.5 million of fresh capital — which  follows previous investment rounds in 2015 (£2.5 million), 2016 (£1.5 million) and 2019 (£1.25 million) — will go to accelerating the growth while also evolving the platform to meet market demands. Founded back in 2008, Third Financial originally saw success with ‘Tercero’, its CRM and portfolio management system for wealth managers, which the company says remains a key part of the business with a sizeable blue-chip client base. In 2016 came the new investment platform. Dubbing itself ‘the fintech behind the fintechs’, the company’s infrastructure and outsourcing platform is used by some of the UK’s wealth managers, IFA networks, family offices and fintech firms. “Since its launch, the platform has been achieving steady annual growth of 40 to 50 per cent, and more recently has done so whilst maintaining profitability - pretty impressive in this economic climate,” says Edward Barroll Brown of Grafton Capital. “This investment is about backing Ian and his team to continue on this path of profitable growth. Third Financial’s Group CEO Ian Partington added that the fresh capital adds “resilience to our balance sheet, during this volatile time for our industry, and this transaction simplifies our ownership structure.”

Photo: Edward Barroll Brown, Founder and Managing Partner at Grafton Capital