New York market data technology firm Wombat Financial Software has secured $700,000 (£377,500) in funding from Invest Northern Ireland (InvestNI), the Northern Ireland economic development organisation, which it will use to expand its Belfast development centre.
Wombat will use the funds to increase the number of staff at the development centre to 45 by the end of 2007.
Danny Moore, Wombat COO, says the Belfast engineering centre has played a central role in the firm's growth, rolling out more than 15 new data feed handlers and a new middleware platform.
Commenting on the funding, John Haran, SVP, America, InvestNI, says Northern Ireland has emerged as a major centre for financial sector software development: "CitiGroup's decision to establish a technology centre of excellence in Belfast is recognition of the substantial technical and human resources that are available in Northern Ireland. This follows similar investments from Liberty IT and Northbrook Technology. There's also a number of emerging financial sector enterprises, including First Derivatives Plc, Harco, Microgen and now Wombat."
Wombat is opening a new US sales and support office in New York at 48 Wall Street, relocating from offices in Brooklyn Heights.