The 2013 Tech 50: Lance Uggla

When it was spun off from TD Securities ten years ago, Markit Group specialized in valuing opaque credit derivatives. Having expanded into other data- and analysis-driven businesses and surpassing $1 billion in revenue and 3,000 employees this year, the company that Lance Uggla started in a St. Albans, England, barn is making a valuation splash of its own. A 10 percent investment in May by Singapore sovereign wealth fund Temasek Holdings valued Markit at $5 billion, up from $3 billion when private equity firm General Atlantic took a 7.5 percent stake in 2010. "It's a strong check mark on our strategy and plans for the future," says Uggla. These owners are on board because those plans are big, and the 51-year-old, London-based CEO is working hard to deliver. The Temasek deal complements a push into Asia, spearheaded by co-founder and president Kevin Gould, who has relocated to Singapore. Says Uggla, "The industry needs solutions to reduce costs," and "disruptive technologies" hold the key. One, Markit Enterprise Data Management, a hosted pricing, data storage and distribution platform built on the 2012 acquisition of Cadis, has 90 customers and is Markit's fastest-growing business. Coming soon is a federated chat network, a collaborative communications platform that may challenge Bloomberg's dominant instant messaging service. Markit's chat "will be open architecture," Uggla stresses. "Bloomberg could join if they thought it served their strategy."