A look back on 2022 at Origin
I hope you’re all beginning to take your foot off the gas before the holidays. I’m getting there, but whoever coined the phrase “winding down for Christmas” can’t have been running a startup!
It’s certainly been a sprint to the finish at Origin, with a lot of business to wrap up, some travel and then party season. We managed to celebrate a little with our office party last week, which included raclette, painting and the traditional company-wide Secret Santa. It was a great day and night and, as always, fantastic to have the team together in one place.
We kicked off the party with our final town hall of the year, where I ran through some of our accomplishments for the year. I honestly surprised myself at how long and impressive the list was. In the thick of the weeks and months…and sprints and pitches…it’s hard to get a sense of how much progress we’re actually making. We’ve set ourselves challenging goals, so for the most part, the overarching feeling is one of stressing, straining, and striving. But just as you admire the view at the top of a long hike, it’s very sweet to admire the view from the end of the year. Turns out, we’ve accomplished a hell of a lot.
I don’t often talk about us on the blog, but I thought I’d share a few of the highlights that we celebrated. Some of our major wins in 2022 include:
We closed 162 trades across our Documentation tool, which is almost 5 TIMES on our run rate in 2021! We are well and truly beyond the world of pilots and firsts. This baby is flying.
We expanded our client footprint, and I’m very proud to say that we now have 22 Dealers and 103 Issuers connected to the Origin platform.
Thanks to an immense effort led by my co-founder and our CTO, Rob, we received ISO 27001 certification, the gold standard of international information security standards. Achieving the certification is hard – and I’m so proud and thankful towards the team that focused so hard on getting it over the line.
Our designers, engineers and product team rebuilt our application’s entire front end using the latest technologies and reusable components.
We celebrated the launch of Origin Extract, our first feature making use of machine learning, which aims to help us extract structured data from documents. Read more about its development and release here: In-house we trust.
We upgraded our cross-currency pricer to support pricing into new risk-free rates (SOFR, SONIA, €STR, etc) after the LIBOR transition.
We went live with SSO (single sign-on), which now allows all users to access the Origin platform password-free.
We signed 2 of our longest contracts ever, with 2 dealers committing to Origin for a 3-year period.
And, last but not least, we won not one, but two awards at the annual Global Capital DCM awards for Best Fintech for Primary Market Operations for both FIG & SSA
Being able to achieve even half of these wins would have been unthinkable just 2 years ago. But it’s a huge testament to the Origin team, who work tirelessly all day every day to turn ideas and thoughts into reality. Without a doubt, it’s the most talented and hardest-working group of people I’ve ever had the privilege to work alongside.
These wins have also only been possible because of our clients. They bet on us early, supported us and guided us over the years, making us the company we are today. Many of our clients have been with us for 6 years now – which seems kind of insane to me! I’m incredibly grateful to each and every one of them.
And last but certainly not least, a big thank you to our partners at Clearstream and the Luxembourg Stock Exchange. It’s rare and wonderful to work with organizations that combine their size and pedigree with the ambition and agility of a startup.
We don’t rest on our laurels, and the bar for 2023 has just been set a lot higher. But bluster and ambition are for another day, for a new year. For now, it’s time to celebrate and relax with family and loved ones. I hope you all enjoy a well-deserved break over the next few weeks and I wish you all very happy and peaceful holidays.