Shares of Glasgow-based Beeks Financial Cloud Group, a cloud provider for institutional capital markets, rose 4.5% after it announced its entry into the equities automated trading market by adding connectivity to IEX, the New York based US stock exchange.

“Beeks is now an approved extranet service provider for the exchange’s market data,” said Beeks.

“Connectivity within the NY4 datacentre will allow Beeks’ clients to source and trade U.S. Equities data, meaning Beeks can now supply Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) and connectivity in all three of the key financial asset classes: forex, futures and equities.”

Founded in 2012, IEX introduced its first trading venue in 2013 and launched as a US stock exchange in 2016. IEX does not charge for market data or connectivity.

Beeks Financial Cloud CEO Gordon McArthur said: “Having established Beeks as a leading Infrastructure-as-a-service and connectivity provider to the financial markets, we are delighted to now be able to expand into the equities market through this agreement with IEX.

“The equities market represents a significant growth opportunity for Beeks and builds on our recent entry into fixed income and cryptocurrencies.

“We will continue to seek ways to expand our offering and better facilitate our clients.”