Irish foreign exchange tech company Barracuda FX has been acquired by US-based Broadway Technology for an undisclosed sum, with the Barracuda management team staying with the company. 

Broadway provides high-performance financial technology solutions in the area of fixed income and foreign exchange, to clients including 20 of the largest banks in the world. Founded in 2003, Broadway has employees worldwide, with offices in New York, Austin, and London — and now Dublin.

Broadway will retain the Barracuda FX team, and Barracuda will continue to operate as an independent company run by chief executive Kieran Fitzpatrick (48) and chief operating officer Maurice Curran (52). Both will also assume senior roles in Broadway’s FX business, as head of FX and head of FX operations. Broadway will continue to offer Barracuda FX on a standalone basis, with no impact to any existing Barracuda integrations.

Fitzpatrick commented: “This is an excellent opportunity to introduce Barracuda’s award-winning technology and world-class service to a broader audience. Broadway makes sense for Barracuda and for our clients, many of whom already use both firms for key components in their FX technology stack.  Barracuda shares Broadway's vision for the future of front office trading technology and we look forward to taking leadership roles and building on Broadway's remarkable success.’’

Barracuda provides trading and risk management software solutions to banks and financial institutions. Fitzpatrick and Curran founded the venture in 2009, and within its first year they had signed up a one of the top five banks in the world as a client. “We were never quite sure if that was through serendipity or perseverance,” says Fitzpatrick.

In Association with

Early client successes helped secure the backing of Enterprise Ireland (€400,000) and the AIB Seed Capital Fund (€600,000). Other investors include Mark Redwood (€200,000), whose AVT Technologies was acquired by Reuters. Redwood joined Barracuda’s board in 2013, the same year that the company won the emerging category in the EY Entrepreneur of the Year awards.

Barracuda FX Ltd booked a net profit of €620,000 in 2017 as debtors increased from €625,000 to €2.1m. The company ended the year with €3.3m cash and creditors of €2.2m. Net worth at year-end was €3.4m. Three directors shared remuneration of €400,000 in 2017 when the company employed 24 people. Average staff pay was c.€80,000 per annum.

Houlihan Lokey advised Barracuda FX and McCann FitzGerald was legal adviser to the vendor.

• Download listing of Barracuda FX Ltd shareholders

Photo:  Maurice Curran (left) and Kieran Fitzpatrick