The Boston software company quietly dragging the $4 trillion municipal bond market - the money behind schools, hospitals and bridges - into the internet age.
Every time a city builds a school, a state repaves a highway, or a hospital adds a wing, the money often comes from the same place: municipal bonds. It is a roughly $4 trillion market, and for decades it ran on PDFs, phone calls and mailed paper. Colin MacNaught knew that world from the inside. Between 2008 and 2015 he ran bond issuance for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, putting nearly $25 billion of debt into the market and feeling, deal after deal, how little technology issuers actually had.
In 2015 he left the Treasurer's office and teamed up with Carl Query, a software entrepreneur who had co-founded the vacation-rental startup FlipKey before it was acquired by TripAdvisor. The pairing was deliberate: deep public-finance domain knowledge on one side, consumer-grade product instincts on the other. Together they founded BondLink to build the tools MacNaught wished he had had.
The platform went live in 2016. Rather than reinventing how bonds trade, BondLink focused on the parts issuers control: how they present themselves to investors, how they disclose their finances, and how they market a deal. The first products were investor-relations websites - always-on, branded pages where a government could publish its financials, credit ratings and upcoming offerings for any investor to see.
That framing - transparency as a product - turned out to travel well. Small towns and giant states alike adopted the same toolkit, and BondLink kept adding to it: disclosure and compliance filing, investor identification and outreach, deal marketing, and eventually a broader debt-management console tying it together.
"The trusted platform for municipal finance teams who expect more - printing, distribution, modern deal pages, analytics, and dedicated support all in one place."
The muni market is enormous but opaque. Issuers - especially smaller ones - struggle to reach the right investors, stay on top of continuing-disclosure rules, and stand out in a crowded field of thousands of deals. Poor visibility can mean higher borrowing costs. BondLink gives every issuer a professional, always-on presence and the analytics to court investors directly.
Municipal bond issuers of every size: states, counties, cities, school districts, universities, hospitals, utilities and ports. Marquee clients include the State of California, the City of Chicago, the University of Texas and the City of Boston, alongside states like Florida and Georgia. Collectively, clients have issued $115B+ in bonds and drawn 2M+ visits to their BondLink sites.
BondLink bundles the tasks a finance team juggles across a bond's life into a single subscription - pairing the software with dedicated human support rather than leaving clients to self-serve.
Branded, always-on websites where issuers publish financials, ratings, disclosures and upcoming deals for the whole market to see.
Since 2016Modern deal pages and roadshow tools to present and sell bond offerings to investors.
Since 2016Tools to manage continuing-disclosure and regulatory filing obligations issuers must meet.
Since 2017Analytics that help issuers identify and engage the investors most likely to buy their bonds.
Since 2017An integrated console for printing, distribution, analytics and portfolio oversight in one place.
Since 2020Yield curves, bond evaluations and secondary-market activity from Intercontinental Exchange, surfaced to issuers preparing deals.
Since 2025B2B SaaS. BondLink charges issuers recurring subscriptions for the platform and related services - not fees on the bonds they sell. That alignment keeps the company focused on issuer outcomes: reaching investors, cutting costs, and standing out.
The default alternatives are legacy disclosure and financial-printing vendors, municipal advisors' in-house tools, or manual PDF-and-email workflows. BondLink's edge is a single modern platform built by people who issued bonds themselves, wrapped in hands-on service and, increasingly, live market data from ICE - a combination broader software peers like DebtBook or point-solution disclosure services don't match end to end.
Spent seven years issuing nearly $25 billion in bonds for Massachusetts and earned two national "Deal of the Year" awards from The Bond Buyer. Studied public finance at Harvard's Kennedy School. He builds the product he once needed as a customer.
A repeat internet entrepreneur who co-founded FlipKey (acquired by TripAdvisor) and holds a computer-science degree from the University of Virginia. He brings consumer-grade engineering to a market that never got it.
BondLink has raised roughly $30 million or more across seed, Series A and Series B rounds. Its backers are notable: Franklin Templeton, a major muni-market investor, and Intercontinental Exchange - parent of the New York Stock Exchange - which invested strategically and now feeds market data into the platform.
Begins seven years overseeing bond issuance for the Commonwealth - nearly $25 billion in all.
MacNaught leaves the Treasurer's office and teams with Carl Query to start BondLink in Boston.
The investor-relations product launches; early adopters include the City of Boston.
Franklin Templeton leads a $10 million round to expand the platform and team.
BondLink raises Series B capital and powers outreach for California, Chicago and the University of Texas.
Intercontinental Exchange invests and begins feeding market data to issuers; the company earns its seventh straight GovTech 100 spot.
BondLink sits at the intersection of two worlds that rarely overlap: govtech and capital markets. On one side are thousands of public issuers who need to borrow but lack the tooling of a corporate treasury. On the other are institutional and retail investors hungry for information before they buy. BondLink is the connective layer - the place issuers present themselves and investors go to look.
Its seven straight years on Government Technology's GovTech 100 speak to staying power in a market where sales cycles are long and trust is everything. And ICE's strategic investment hints at where the category is heading: issuer software fused with live market data, so a small city can price a deal with something closer to the intelligence a Wall Street desk takes for granted.
"Sometimes the most important infrastructure is the software behind the infrastructure."
It makes cloud software for municipal bond issuers - governments, universities, hospitals and utilities - to run investor-relations websites, market bond deals, meet disclosure requirements and manage their debt in one platform.
It was founded in 2015 by Colin MacNaught (CEO), a former Massachusetts debt manager, and Carl Query (CTO), a tech entrepreneur who previously co-founded FlipKey.
U.S. municipal bond issuers of all sizes, including the State of California, City of Chicago, University of Texas and City of Boston, along with many smaller cities, districts and public entities.
Roughly $30 million or more across seed, Series A and Series B rounds from investors including Franklin Templeton, Intercontinental Exchange, Coatue Management and Accomplice.
It operates as a B2B SaaS business, charging issuers recurring subscriptions for its platform and related services rather than taking fees on the bonds they sell.