Boom and bust software mogul and ex-billionaire Erik Damgaard has his eyes set now on the Forex world.

LeapRate Exclusive… One of Denmark’s most colorful businessmen is now looking to become a player in FX platforms. LeapRate has learned that Straticator, a Spain and Denmark-based software startup co-founded by Erik Damgaard, has developed a new FX trading platform.

Straticator has landed its first client — UK forex broker Abshire-Smith — and is looking to raise about $20 million (€15 million) in outside capital to help grow the business. A PowerPoint presentation regarding the planned fundraising is now being circulated among venture capital firms and other potential investors.

More on Damgaard below, but first some background on Straticator:

• Senior management is led by Damgaard, Martin Bichel and Spain-based Martin Juncher. Interestingly, all three come from outside the online trading industry.
• If successful in fundraising, Straticator plans to open sales offices in Hong Kong, London, Dubai and New York, and pursue clients in each of those locations.
• We understand that Straticator was the only real interested party which looked at buying DCM Capital’s sentiment-trading platform earlier this year. After much negotiation the deal didn’t go through.

So who is Erik Damgaard? While not too well known outside of his home country of Denmark, Damgaard is somewhat of a celebrity at home and is certainly one of Europe’s most colorful and controversial businessmen.

In 2002 Damgaard and his brother Preben sold their accounting and ERP software company Navision to none other than Microsoft for about $1.5 billion, making the two brother billionaires. But the money did not last long for Erik, although the fame certainly has. As far as fame and notoriety go, Damgaard and his wife Signe (with whom he has two children) broke up, Damgaard hooked up with Danish Playboy model Anni Fonsby, and they starred in the 2009 Danish reality TV show ‘Erik and Anni go to Hollywood’.

Damgaard and Fonsby then married (and remain married today), but the honeymoon did not last long. Several months after the wedding both Fonsby and Damgaard were arrested on suspicion of pimping, with Anni suspected of running brothels and Erik of being involved in their financing.

On the financial side of things, Damgaard’s private investment company Portefoljeinvest went bust in 2011 after sustain hundreds of millions of dollars in losses attributed mainly to the post-2008 financial crisis and economic slowdown.

So will Straticator mark Erik Damgaard’s big comeback? Stay tuned…. 

For more on the global Forex industry see the LeapRate-Dow Jones Forex Industry Report.