The 2015 Tech 50: Mas Nakachi

< The 2015 Tech 50: Racers to the Edge

48
Mas Nakachi
Chief Executive Officer
OpenGamma
Last year: 50

“Standard,” “open” and “transparent” are trending keywords in financial services and information technology alike. OpenGamma straddles those worlds as “the only open-source risk and analytics company in fintech,” boasts Mas Nakachi, the London-based company’s 41-year-old CEO. A nagging question for OpenGamma since its founding in 2009 — with backing from venture capital firms Accel Partners and FirstMark Capital, along with ICAP (see Michael Spencer, No. 13) and its Euclid Opportunities fund — has been how to profit from software that is built on openly accessible standards and targeted at an industry in the midst of “fundamental changes, a lot of them regulatory-driven,” as Nakachi puts it. OpenGamma may now be showing the way with a “focus on market structure and its needs for openness and transparency,” he says. “This is why we have been invited in to talk to regulators,” putting forward a margin calculation model for noncleared over-the-counter trades as part of a standard methodology being developed by the International Swaps and Derivatives Association. It is a short leap from such industry-specific utilities to the blockchain, which is “open technology at its core,” Nakachi points out. He is watching the decentralized, cryptocurrency-associated ledger closely because “it is open-source, and the future of finance is decentralized systems” — a disruption to business models that he sees playing out over three to five years. Last October fintech investor and former ICAP executive Mark Beeston (No. 10 on the 2014 Trading Technology 40) became OpenGamma’s chairman, succeeding founder Kirk Wylie, now chief innovation officer. Also joining the board: former SunGard CEO and mentor to start-ups Cristóbal Conde (No. 39 on last year’s Tech 50 and an investor in OpenFin — see Mazy Dar, No. 46).

See the full story, “The 2015 Tech 50: Racers to the Edge.”

The 2015 Tech 50