After growing up in Charlottesville, Dan Schleifer skipped town to find tech jobs in major U.S. metropolitan areas. Little did he know, C-ville would later be home to one of the hottest fintech startups in Virginia – and he’d be at the helm.
His software company, ChartIQ, has closed a $17.4 million Series B funding round as it plans to nearly double its workforce.
It’s a big funding upgrade for the startup, which had previously raised about $4 million in capital since its founding in 2012.
ChartIQ makes charting software for 300-plus financial institutions, ranging from some of the world’s largest investment banks to consumer-facing applications like Yahoo Finance. Its newest product, Finsemble, is a desktop integration platform that connects different finance applications into one interface.
The company will use the funding to make hires, expand its headquarters and invest in research and development.
Schleifer, founder and CEO, said he plans to grow ChartIQ from 50 to 80-90 employees by the end of the year. The bulk of workers – about 40 – work in its Charlottesville headquarters, which is where most of the new hires will be based. It has smaller offices in New York and London, with a Hong Kong satellite planned to open in the second quarter this year.
The startup plans to hire 15 to 20 software developers during its growth spurt, as well as sales staff.
Germany-based Digital Partners, a growth equity firm that invests in B2B technology companies, led the funding round. Additional capital came from existing investors: London-based Illuminate Financial Management, California-based Social Leverage and New York-based ValueStream Ventures.
Schleifer said he’s proud to run a company and supply technology jobs in his hometown of Charlottesville, even if it's far from investors and clients.
“Our investors are generally outside the area – California, New York, London, Hong Kong and now Germany,” he said. “We found that it’s not an impediment, but instead we’ve been fortunate in attracting top-notch capital partners in those major metropolitan areas and being able to tie into those areas.”
And being in Charlottesville has its perks during hiring season, Schleifer said.
“The talent pool is definitely thinner, but we’re not competing with Google and Facebook and everyone else … People always ask when I’m going to move to New York, but [Central Virginia] is a great place to hire – there’s incredible talent and people live here because they want to be here.”
