Citi’s venture investment arm is continuing to lean into a strategy to make repeated monetary infusions into early-stage companies, because it provides the bank with an insider’s view on startup performance and progress.

“The bigger role of a strategic investor is not really to find unicorns … the goal should be around finding a good company early and helping them build a product that brings them to market,” Katya Chupryna, investment lead for Citi SPRINT, a venture investing team within Citi’s Global Spread Products business, told Bank Automation News.

One investment that the bank continues to lean into in each of its funding rounds is Genesis Global, Chupryna told BAN. The bank’s initial venture in Genesis started in 2020, “and we participated in every round that has happened since,” she said.

London-based Genesis Global speeds up the application development process and allows financial institutions to build out new protocols and processes quickly, according to its website.

In Thursday’s investment, Citi joined Bank of America and BNY Mellon in investing a combined $20 million in the low-code application development company, according to a statement.

The three investors are expanding their partnerships with Genesis Global to work on “multiple innovative projects,” Genesis Global Chief Executive Stephen Murphy said in a statement.

Citi, for one, is working on a new project launch with Genesis, Chupryna noted, without disclosing details or a timeline.

The investment announcement follows a series of new platform launches backed by Bank of America and Citi, a Genesis Global spokesperson told BAN. For example, the banks, with Genesis Global, launched electronically managed syndicated loan and CLO platform Octaura and price discovery hub for fixed income Neptune Networks in June.

More recently, Citi invested in enterprise digital documentation startup Arteria AI in June, Chupryna said.

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