TradeSmart

TS Imagine is a global leader in the financial technology sector, formed in May 2021 through the strategic merger of TradingScreen and Imagine Software. Backed by the private equity firm Francisco Partners, the company serves as a unified force in the SaaS-based investment management market. Headquartered in New York with over 10 offices worldwide—including major hubs in London, Hong Kong, and Montreal—TS Imagine employs more than 400 professionals. The company's mission is to simplify the complex global financial ecosystem by providing a single, integrated platform for trading, portfolio management, and risk analytics. TS Imagine is positioned as a primary challenger to legacy financial software giants, leveraging a cloud-native architecture that offers superior agility, data transparency, and scalability for the world's most sophisticated asset managers, hedge funds, and banks.

The foundation of TS Imagine is rooted in two distinct pioneers of fintech. TradingScreen was founded in 1999 by Philippe Buhannic and Joseph Ahearn with the vision of creating a broker-neutral platform for electronic trading, which eventually became the flagship TradeSmart EMS. Simultaneously, Imagine Software was founded in the early 1990s, specializing in institutional-grade risk management and portfolio analytics. In May 2021, Francisco Partners orchestrated a merger of the two entities, appointing Rob Flatley—founder of CoreOne Technologies and a veteran of Deutsche Bank—as CEO. This pivotal decision was driven by the market's growing demand for 'Front-to-Back' solutions that could handle the entire investment lifecycle within a single SaaS environment, moving away from the fragmented and siloed systems of the past.

TS Imagine is a private equity-backed company, primarily funded by Francisco Partners. While the exact valuation at the time of the 2021 merger was not publicly disclosed, PitchBook and other financial databases track the company's funding history as exceeding $127 million across its evolution. This funding has been strategically deployed to fuel research and development, particularly for the 'Platform 3.0' initiative and the recent acquisition of PrimeOne from S&P Global in 2024. The backing of Francisco Partners, a firm with a deep history in technology and financial services investments, provides TS Imagine with the capital and strategic guidance necessary to scale globally and pursue aggressive product expansion, such as the entry into the securities lending market.

TS Imagine offers a comprehensive suite of purpose-built SaaS solutions categorized by operational function. The flagship product is TradeSmart, a multi-asset Execution Management System (EMS). This is complemented by TS One, an all-in-one platform designed for the entire investing team, integrating portfolio management, trading, and risk. For risk-focused professionals, the company provides RiskSmart and RiskSmart X, which offer real-time financial risk modeling and stress testing. WealthSmart caters specifically to the private wealth management sector, while PrimeOne (following the 2024 acquisition) provides foundational technology for prime brokers, including SwapSmart for synthetic prime brokerage and LoanSmart for securities-backed lending and repo management.

TS Imagine has maintained a robust global footprint since its inception, with a physical presence in nearly every major financial center. Key offices are located in New York, Montreal, London, Paris, Zurich, Hong Kong, Singapore, Tokyo, and Sydney. The company has aggressively expanded its geographic reach to support regional trading nuances, such as local language support in Tokyo and specialized fixed-income tools for the EMEA market. Recent expansion efforts have focused on deeper integration with global banking networks, such as the partnership with Temenos to make TradeSmart available on the Temenos Exchange, thereby reaching a vast network of international banks. The company also services major sovereign wealth funds and institutional clients across the Middle East from its global service hubs.

In the last 18 months, TS Imagine has undergone its most significant technological transformation with the launch of Platform 3.0. This release introduced deep integration with Snowflake, allowing for a massive expansion of data coverage and the ability to process over 25 million financial instruments. Key new features include AI-embedded insights for automated order routing (AutoRoute), the 'Algo-Wheel' for systematic broker evaluation, and enhanced fixed-income tools like the 'Liquidity Snapshot' for regulatory audit trails. Additionally, the company launched LoanSmart in late 2025, a front-to-back solution for securities lending and repo management, further extending the platform’s utility into the middle and back-office financing space.

The culture at TS Imagine is defined by a unique intersection of high-end technology and deep-domain trading expertise. The company prides itself on hiring 'practitioners'—former senior traders and risk managers—who work alongside elite software engineers. This 'traders building for traders' philosophy ensures that the product is grounded in the reality of the market. TS Imagine promotes an environment of innovation and speed, typical of a SaaS firm, while maintaining the rigorous security and reliability standards required by the financial industry. The company also emphasizes diversity and professional growth, frequently being recognized in 'Women in Technology & Data' awards and other industry-specific culture accolades.

TS Imagine fosters a robust developer and user community through several key initiatives. Its Developer Program provides clients with comprehensive financial APIs and SDKs, allowing them to build proprietary extensions or integrate TradeSmart with custom quant strategies. The company maintains a 'Content Hub' filled with industry whitepapers, such as those co-authored with Coalition Greenwich, and provides a 'Fixed Income Electronic Trading Glossary' to help modernize the broader market. TS Imagine also hosts regular client webinars and user group sessions to gather feedback on new features, ensuring its product roadmap is closely aligned with the evolving needs of its sophisticated global user base.