< The 2015 Tech 50: Racers to the Edge

Start-ups may have advantages in terms of invention and agility, but “getting big banks and trading institutions to work with you is a challenge,” says Mazy Dar. “The bar is especially high when you’re a small firm addressing a mission-critical part of the infrastructure.” Dar, 39, has been toiling since 2010 as CEO of OpenFin, developing a new, financial-services-focused approach to desktop programming, and 2015 is shaping up as its breakthrough year. The 20-employee, New York–based company in April raised $3 million from Bain Capital Ventures, Pivot Investment Partners, Nyca Partners and 20 individuals, including ex-CEOs Cristóbal Conde of SunGard Data Services and Thomas Glocer of Thomson Reuters. At the time of the funding, 11 top banks and trading platforms were using OpenFin’s patent-pending software, which is an implementation of the HTML5 language based on the Google Chromium open-source browser project. Dar expects to have all “majors” on board by year-end. OpenFin addresses firms’ desire for simplified installations and upgrades and maximum performance — the speed and analytics demanded by traders — across all browsers and devices, while leveraging the latest advances coming out of Silicon Valley. “The ability to build once and run everywhere — with better user experience, performance and security, extending to mobile and tablet devices — is huge for this business,” says Dar, who was chief strategy officer of credit-derivatives-trading pioneer Creditex Group before its 2008 sale to Intercontintental Exchange, and then an ICE executive committee member. “It is a problem for any firm in the financial industry to deliver continuous innovation, and we solve that with a focus on capital markets.”

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The 2015 Tech 50

1. Jeffrey Sprecher Intercontinental Exchange 2. Catherine Bessant Bank of America Corp. Finding, Applying for, and Winning Grant Funding: Tips for Nonprofits Sponsored by Fidelity Investments April 29, 2025 3. Phupinder Gill CME Group 4. Lance Uggla Markit 5. Robert Goldstein BlackRock

6. Shawn Edwards & Vlad Kliatchko Bloomberg 7. R. Martin Chavez Goldman Sachs Group 8. Deborah Hopkins Citi Ventures 9. Stephen Neff Fidelity Investments 10. Adena Friedman Nasdaq OMX Group

11. David Craig Thomson Reuters 12. Daniel Coleman KCG Holdings 13. Michael Spencer ICAP 14. Michael Bodson Depository Trust & Clearing Corp. 15. Charles Li Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing

16. Chris Concannon BATS Global Markets 17. Christopher Perretta State Street Corp. 18. Antoine Shagoury London Stock Exchange Group 19. Kevin Rhein Wells Fargo & Co. 20. Neil Katz D.E. Shaw & Co.

21. Lee Olesky Tradeweb Markets 22. Richard McVey MarketAxess Holdings 23. Seth Merrin Liquidnet Holdings 24. Robert Alexander Capital One Financial Corp. 25. Frank Bisignano First Data Corp.

26. John Marcante Vanguard Group 27. Joseph Squeri Citadel 28. Lou Eccleston TMX Group 29. Claude Honegger Credit Suisse 30. Chris Corrado MSCI

31. David Gledhill DBS Bank 32. John Bates Software AG 33. Michael Cooper BT Radianz 34. Gary Scholten Principal Financial Group 35. Sunil Hirani trueEX Group

36. Hauke Stars Deutsche BÖrse 37. Brian Conlon First Derivatives 38. Jim Minnick eVestment 39. Lars Seier Christensen & Kim Fournais 40. Tyler Kim MaplesFS

41. Jim McGuire Charles Schwab Corp. 42. Steven O'Hanlon Numerix 43. Sebastián Ceria Axioma 44. Yasuki Okai NRI Holdings America 45. Stephane Dubois Xignite

46. Mazy Dar OpenFin 47. Brian Sentance Xenomorph Software 48. Mas Nakachi OpenGamma 49. John Lehner BNY Mellon Technology Solutions Group 50. Jock Percy Perseus