Seaport-based BondLink Inc., a software startup that helps municipal bond issuers connect with investors, has found its latest customer close to home — the city of Boston on Thursday launched a new investor relations website powered by BondLink.
The new site, BuyBostonBonds.com, gives potential investors insight into the city’s finances, the projects it’s currently funding through bond sales, and other information. In addition to public-facing websites, BondLink builds a variety of backend tools that help cities, states and universities manage their relationships with investors.
BondLink was co-founded by Colin MacNaught, who led the Commonwealth of Massachusetts’ Debt Management Department from 2008 to 2015.
“It was really my own personal experience (that led to BondLink),” MacNaught said. “I was struck by the notion that there was really no technology to help me connect with investors and engage with investors.”
BondLink sells to municipalities on the idea that the software will help them attract more investors, which will in turn improve the prices on their bonds. The startup earlier this year raised $10 million from Franklin Templeton Investments, one of the largest bond investors in the country, which proved to MacNaught that municipal bond investors are desperate for the kind of data and analytics BondLink can offer them.
“It’s certainly long overdue for this market to get to where the stock market is,” MacNaught said. “We’re trying to bring those tools to the municipal bond market.”
For BondLink, Boston is just the latest in a string of high profile customers the startup has signed on since it launched its software in late 2016. The State of California, the largest municipal bond issuer in the country, and the State of Ohio are both customers, as is the City of Chicago.
“The market is enormous,” MacNaught said. “75 percent of the things around you — the roads, the bridges, the schools, the subways, the airports, the sewers you don’t see — those are all funded through the municipal bond market.”
The company has about 20 employees, with plans to roughly double that number by the end of the year, according to MacNaught.
Boston Business Journal
By Kelly J. O’Brien