Capitolis CEO Gil Mandelzis Wins Goldman Sachs Top Entrepreneur Award

Gil Mandelzis, who founded and leads capital markets technology firm Capitolis, has been named among Goldman Sachs' Most Exceptional Entrepreneurs of 2026. The recognition was announced at the bank's annual Builders and Innovators Summit in Healdsburg, California, marking the second year in a row Mandelzis has earned the distinction.

The timing coincides with a period of rapid expansion for Capitolis. The company recently closed $220 million in new capital, including a $120 million Series E round that valued the business at $1.9 billion. A consortium of eight major financial institutions backed the round: Bank of America, Barclays, BNP Paribas, Citi, J.P. Morgan, Nomura, State Street and UBS.

Shortly before the funding announcement, Capitolis revealed an all-cash agreement to acquire eSecLending for $200 million. The firm says the transaction will expand its financial resource management capabilities and bring a broader base of asset-owner clients into its network.

The company has also strengthened its leadership team, appointing Murugan Manikam, formerly a managing director at Bank of America, as chief technology officer.

Capitolis operates as a technology platform for balance sheet optimisation, working with global and regional banks alongside institutional investors. The firm identifies capital, funding and liquidity constraints, then facilitates the redistribution of risk and capital across its participant network.

In practice, the platform compresses bilateral exposures, nets portfolios and routes risk to counterparties with the capacity to hold it. This process frees up regulatory capital that would otherwise remain locked on balance sheets.

Mandelzis brings deep experience in post-trade and markets infrastructure. He previously founded Traiana, a post-trade processing company acquired by ICAP (later rebranded NEX Group) for $250 million in 2007. He went on to lead EBS BrokerTec, NEX's foreign exchange and fixed-income electronic markets business, before launching Capitolis in 2017.

Capital optimisation technology has become essential infrastructure for large banks navigating Basel III and Basel IV requirements. Multilateral netting and portfolio compression are now standard tools for institutions managing leverage ratios and risk-weighted asset floors, attracting a range of specialist providers to the segment.

Capitolis benefits from an unusual shareholder structure: several of the world's largest banks hold stakes in the company alongside venture capital firms such as Andreessen Horowitz, Sequoia Capital and Index Ventures. This means many of its institutional investors are simultaneously clients and counterparties, creating direct distribution advantages.

The eSecLending acquisition adds a securities lending business to Capitolis's core compression and optimisation offering. Securities lending brings access to a client base of large asset owners — pension funds and insurance companies — that typically maintain long-duration balance sheet relationships. Whether integrating a custodial securities lending model with a capital-optimisation network delivers operational leverage or simply broadens the product range remains to be seen.

As AI reshapes the global landscape, the leaders at Capitolis are proving that agility and vision can be the ultimate competitive advantages.

That assessment came from Goldman Sachs chairman and chief executive David Solomon in connection with the entrepreneur award.

Capitolis has appeared on Fortune's America's Most Innovative Companies 2026 list and CNBC's World's Top Fintech Companies list this year. The New York-headquartered firm was founded in 2017.