Options trading firm bets on £18m Aim float

An Israeli trading software firmed backed by two heavyweights from the gambling industry will float on Aim today with an £18.4m valuation.

TechFinancials, which counts former Ladbrokes chief executive Chris Bell as chairman and ex-888 Holdings boss Gigi Levy as an investor, has raised £3.05m from the initial public offering.

Shares in the business start trading on London's junior market today at a price of 27p.

The company, which has offices in Israel and Cyprus, is focused on binary options, an increasingly popular form of financial betting.

Unlike other options, these instruments only have two outcomes: they either pay a set amount or nothing. TechFinancials reckons that trading of such options worldwide will reach about $29.8bn next year, from an estimated $13.6bn in 2014.

Founded in 2009, the company develops software that is used by online brokers across the fast-growing industry, as well as running its own binary options broker.

It posted revenues of $7.2m for the first half of 2014 and claims its software processes about 18pc of all deposits used in binary options trading.

TechFinancials is not the first Israeli business brought to the London market by Mr Bell, who left Ladbrokes in 2010.

Gaming marketing company XL Media, where he is also chairman, raised £41.8m from a float on Aim last year. Indeed, a host of Israeli tech companies have flocked to Britain's equity market recently.

Contracts for difference trading firm Plus500 floated in July 2013, while digital advertising companies Matomy and Marimedia came to the London market last year.

Crossrider, another digital advertising business, and payments company Safecharge also made their London stock market debuts in 2014. Both are backed by prolific Israeli entrepreneur Teddy Sagi, who listed gambling software giant Playtech in 2006 and floated Camden Market-owner Market Tech last December.

Mr Levy, who quit as boss of online gambling business 888 in 2011, will hold a 2.86pc stake in TechFinancials following the IPO. The company, which plans on making acquisitions, recently launched a foreign exchange product and will use the funds raised from the listing to enter the US and Japan.

Last year it began to expand into Asia and it plans to open an office in China.