Flowdesk Raises $50m Series B, led by Cathay Innovation

January 18, 2024
Europe

Primary focuses will be investing in strategic hires, broadening their over-the-counter (OTC) offering and Market-Making services, securing regulatory licenses in Singapore and the US, and expanding into key financial hubs.

Flowdesk, a full-service digital asset trading technology firm, today announces its $50 million Series B, led by Cathay Innovation along with the participation of Cathay Ledger Fund, Eurazeo, ISAI, Speedinvest, BPI and Ripple.

“This raise highlights the significance of Flowdesk as the emerging industry standard for market-making and over-the-counter (OTC) services, offering sustainable and compliant liquidity solutions for token issuers and institutions. In a landscape marked by regulatory uncertainties, volatility, and multiple industry-wide setbacks, liquidity has remained scarce. Flowdesk’s full suite of services aims to revolutionize this landscape, offering scalable, risk-adjusted, and capital-efficient solutions.” says Guilhem Chaumont, CEO and Co-Founder of Flowdesk.

The funds raised will be used to consolidate their position as a leading market-making service provider and expand their OTC offering. In addition, Flowdesk plans to expand regulatory coverage in Singapore and in the US. The raise will also be invested into expanding offices in financial hubs and key hires, like Charles Tighe, CFO who will help Flowdesk roll out their development plan.

Flowdesk experienced a threefold increase in revenues year on year, notably driven by the growth of the APAC region under supervision of David Bachelier (Chief Markets Officer and CEO APAC). Their newly opened US and Canada office, led by Reed Werbitt (ex-Managing Director and Head of Cash Trading at Genesis), has been scaling rapidly over the past few months. The OTC desk, joined by Hanson Birringer, Greg Guttas and Warren Wynn (respectively Head of OTC sales, Head of OTC trading and Head of Trading Operations), has been running full speed. Flowdesk was also recently named as an approved liquidity provider for the Grayscale ETF, marking another milestone in the institutionalization of their flow after their recent collaboration with Societe-Generale FORGE.

The Flowdesk team has been focusing on improving trust in the market-making landscape by developing regulated and transparent market-making services to token issuers, exchanges and institutions. It has been the pioneering force behind developing Market Making as a Service (MMaaS), a product that lets token issuers utilize Flowdesk’s low-latency trading infrastructure and global team for liquidity provision while keeping full control of their treasury.

Amid the failures spotlighted in the crypto industry last year, Flowdesk continued the focus on raising the bar in compliance and service quality. By providing a trustless and fair pricing model, Flowdesk addresses these current market challenges of regulation uncertainty, lack of transparency, and high cost.

“We are proud to champion Flowdesk and very excited to support them to further accelerate their growth and international development. Through their innovative SaaS model, Flowdesk has consistently demonstrated impressive performance over the last three years. Our investment extends beyond capital, foresting a collaborative journey with our long-standing Cathay ecosystem to shape the future of financial markets”, adds Jacky Abitbol, Managing Partner at Cathay Innovation.

“Flowdesk’s execution and achievements since Series A have been extremely impressive in all market conditions. Therefore, we decided to double down and renew our support for Guilhem and his team” said Thomas Turelier, VC at Eurazeo, Series A lead investor.

About Flowdesk:

Flowdesk is a full service digital asset trading technology firm that offers market making, OTC and treasury management. They have set the standards for Market Making as a Service (MMaaS). MMaaS offers a new approach to managing liquidity on secondary markets. Crypto projects, exchanges and institutions can manage their own liquidity using Flowdesk’s MMaaS infrastructure and its trading team’s global coverage. Founded in 2020, Flowdesk is based in Paris with offices in Singapore and North America, guaranteeing a global operational coverage. Flowdesk’s ambition is to become the market leader in infrastructure provision for trading and financial services in digital assets. Flowdesk has a strong conviction that the next wave of tokenization will, on one hand, significantly raise the amount of tokens, including securities and real world assets and, on the other hand, it will exponentially increase the number of market-making streams. All these require a radically new, scalable approach to market-making, resolving the issues of proprietary market-making which is today’s dominant model. To fulfill this vision, Flowdesk is at the forefront of legal compliance. It has obtained a Digital Asset Service Provider registration in France and pending regulatory approval in other jurisdictions.

About Cathay Innovation:

​Cathay Innovation is a multistage venture capital firm, affiliated to Cathay Capital, investing in founders building transformative businesses across Europe, North America, Asia, Latin America and Africa. Its platform connects founders with investors and its ecosystem of leading Fortune500 corporations to help startups scale and transform industries with consumer to enterprise and AI solutions in commerce, fintech, digital health and mobility / energy. Founded in Paris in 2015, Cathay Innovation now manages over €2.5B AUM with additional offices in Berlin, San Francisco, Shanghai and Singapore and has invested in over 100 startups including Chime, Pinduoduo (NASDAQ: PDD), Glovo, Wallbox (NYSE: WBX), Owkin, Getaround, Ledger, ZenBusiness, Alma, Descartes Underwriting and more. To learn more, visit us at www.cathayinnovation.com or follow us on LinkedIn or Twitter @cathayinnov.