Turquoise, the European alternative trading system backed by leading banks, will ask its shareholders for a third round of fundraising, according to a report by Bloomberg News.

The London-based company is seeking a "a year's worth of operating capital" as part of a plan to become profitable by 2010, Chief Executive Eli Lederman told Bloomberg in an interview. "It's a relatively small amount of money we're raising," Lederman told Bloomberg, providing no further details on how much it was requesting.

Turquoise, a multilateral trading facility, is competing with the London Stock Exchange as well as established European exchanges including NYSE Euronext, Deutsche Borse AG, began operating in August of 2009, and began a second round of capital raising in November.

Lederman reportedly said that the company is raising money that will see it through the next 12 months, "by which time we have turned the corner and become profitable." The fundraising should be completed in the next six weeks, the CEO told Bloomberg.

In March, Turquoise experienced a decline in volume when its liquidity agreements with nine founding banks expired on March 13. In addition, BATS Europe surpassed Turquoise' volume on March 25 for the first time. In response, Turquoise enhances its rebates to make its equity trading tariffs more competitive. It also announced a Pan European dark pool routing service that is due to go live in July. TQ Channel will use algorithms to pass orders to non-displayed liquidity sources.

Meanwhile on June2, BATS Europe reported that its market share in FTSE 100 stocks was 5.17 percent, breaking the record of its previous 4.99 %, while its share in French CAC40 was up to 6.22 percent, vs. the previous 5.33 and it's share of Amsterdam AEX was 4.90 percent, versus 4.11 on May 27. Overall, BATS had 3.33 percent market share in European stocks, versus the previous 2.97 as of May 29 and June 1st.