Citadel Securities, a leading global market maker for stocks and financial products based in Chicago, has raised $1.15 billion from area venture capital firms Sequoia and Paradigm. Sequoia led the round, with the investment coming from Sequoia Heritage, Sequoia Capital Global Equities and the Global Growth Fund.
Sequoia Partner Alfred Lin is joining the Citadel Securities Board of Directors. Lin is one of the most powerful venture capitalists in Silicon Valley. He sits on the Board of Directors for both Airbnb and Doordash and helped lead their IPOs in 2020 on back-to-back days.
“Citadel Securities has carved out a unique place in the financial markets through its ability to absorb and price risk using techniques and capabilities from far outside the traditional world of Wall Street,” said Sequoia Partner Alfred Lin. “Citadel Securities’ commitment to solving for the needs of its clients through advanced analytics and technology has helped make markets more accessible for millions of people. We are proud to partner with Citadel Securities in its mission of being the leading market maker in existing and emerging asset classes around the world. Many of our most successful investments have been in companies that share the client-centric ethos that defines Citadel Securities.”
Citadel Securities provides both institutional and retail investors with the liquidity they need to execute transactions across a broad array of equity and fixed income products. The firm has been at the forefront of the modernization of markets and market structures, which has delivered enormous benefits to investors globally. Its institutional business serves more than 1,600 clients, including many of the world’s largest sovereign wealth funds and central banks.
“The talent of our extraordinary market making team combined with our powerful risk management techniques have transformed the client experience in the many markets we serve,” said Citadel Securities Chairman Ken Griffin. “In Sequoia and Paradigm, we have partners that appreciate how the strength of our market expertise, advanced predictive analytics and superlative software engineering can redefine an industry. We look forward to their partnership and to welcoming Alfred to our Board as Citadel Securities accelerates its growth.”
Griffin also runs the Citadel hedge fund and is one of the world’s wealthiest men with an estimated net worth by Forbes of $26 billion.
“Many companies that have transformed the world have achieved their highest ambitions with Sequoia as their partner,” said Citadel Securities CEO Peng Zhao. “As technological innovation in financial markets becomes only more important, we see enormous opportunities to meet the needs of our clients across more markets and more products. Our partnership with Sequoia and Paradigm puts us in an even stronger position as we continue to scale our business, broaden into new markets and attract the world’s most brilliant minds.”
“Citadel Securities has developed software and algorithms that have driven substantial improvement to market structures for the benefit of institutional and retail investors everywhere,” said Matt Huang, Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Paradigm. “We look forward to partnering with the Citadel Securities team as they extend their technology and expertise to even more markets and asset classes, including crypto.”
