But the biggest boost for IEX was the March 2014 release of the book Flash Boys by financial journalist Michael Lewis.
Brad says it changed his life but more importantly, it helped the public understand the issue.
Before Flash Boys was released the company struggled to attract new talent. “We had to find people who really believed in what we were doing,” he says.
But after Flash Boys became a best-seller, IEX started to receive hundreds of application letters, and it was able to raise $75m (£53m) from investors.
.. Jeff Sprecher, the chief executive of Intercontinental Exchange, the company that owns the New York Stock Exchange, even went as far as calling IEX’s approach “un-American”.
.. One of the numerous benefits of becoming an official stock exchange is that traders are legally bound to send orders to it if the stock prices listed there are better than other markets.