Capitolis Raises $220 Million to Buy a Securities Lending Firm Twice Its Deal Size
The capital markets infrastructure company closed a $120 million Series E at a $1.9 billion valuation, plus roughly $100 million in debt, to fund its all-cash acquisition of eSecLending — a deal still awaiting regulatory approval.
NEW YORK — Capitolis, a financial technology company that builds resource-optimization and capital-marketplace tools for banks, announced $220 million in new financing on Oct. 6 — a $120 million Series E equity round at a $1.9 billion valuation, plus roughly $100 million in debt — earmarked to fund its all-cash acquisition of eSecLending, a securities lending provider, for $200 million.
The acquisition, agreed Sept. 29, is larger in dollar terms than the equity portion of the raise funding it, which is why Capitolis paired the Series E with debt financing rather than relying on equity alone. The deal remains subject to regulatory approvals and has not yet closed.
Capitolis has built its business around helping banks and institutional counterparties optimize balance-sheet usage — netting, compressing, and transferring exposures like foreign-exchange trades and securities financing positions without unwinding the underlying economics. eSecLending runs securities lending auctions and agency lending programs for institutional asset owners, a related but distinct corner of capital markets infrastructure. Combining the two would give Capitolis a more direct foothold in securities lending itself, rather than just the optimization layer sitting on top of it.
Neither company has disclosed integration plans or a target close date beyond noting that regulatory sign-off is still pending, so how quickly the combined business can start operating as one platform — and what, if anything, changes for eSecLending’s existing institutional clients — is not yet public.