Standard Chartered crypto custody business Zodia aims to raise $50 million from payments and tokenization firms.
Crypto custodian Zodia, co-owned by global banking giant Standard Chartered, is in the process of raising $50 million in new funding to scale its global operations and launch an extended list of offerings. Bloomberg reported on the custodian’s plans to raise additional funding on November 4, as per its chief executive officer Julian Sawyer.
According to the executive, Zodia plans to receive investments from firms working in the payments and tokenization space to reflect those services in its own offerings. The funding efforts began last month in partnership with crypto advisory firm Architect Partners.
Zodia, not new to the space, was launched in 2020 by Standard Chartered and Northern Trust, a Chicago-based investment bank, to offer institutional-grade custody services. Since then, the custodian has received authorization to operate in numerous markets, including the United Kingdom, Ireland, Luxembourg, Australia, Japan, and Hong Kong. It operates out of its home base in London.
While the custodian seeks funding to expand its operations now, it previously raised $36 million through a Series A funding round led by SBI Holdings, a Japanese banking conglomerate. After the funding event, Standard Chartered reportedly owned 90% of Zodia. National Australia Bank has also invested in the firm.
It presently supports about 38 cryptocurrencies from all major chains, including household assets like Bitcoin, Ethereum, USDT, USDC, and more.
Financial Institutions Are Making Their Way Into the Custody Business
Zodia’s long stay and willingness to expand in the crypto custody space signifies tremendous interest among trusted institutions in launching such services. For instance, the Bank of New York Mellon launched its crypto custody wing in 2022.
Japan’s Nomura Holdings has its digital asset custody business Komainu, which, wanting to expand, acquired Singaporean custodian Propine Technologies. With that, Komainu took another step to exhibit a larger foothold in the Asian markets.
Taiwan’s Financial Supervisory Committee (FSC) is looking to engage its local banks to drive a unified crypto custody program across the nation. The regulator will be open to collecting applications from interested banks in the first quarter of 2025 and kick off this large-scale custody pilot program to enhance crypto-related infrastructure. The news came in October.
A few months prior, State Street entered a deal with Taurus, a digital asset infrastructure provider, to create a custody and tokenization platform.
