About a-team Marketing Services
The knowledge platform for the financial technology industry
The knowledge platform for the financial technology industry

A-Team Insight Blogs

Archax Raises $28.5m in Series A Funding

Subscribe to our newsletter

Archax, the UK FCA-regulated digital asset exchange, brokerage and custodian, has closed a Series A funding round of $28.5 million, with investors including abrdn as lead strategic investor, alongside Bitrock Capital, Blockchain Coinvestors, CE Innovation Capital, Keiretsu Capital, Lingfeng Capital, Mathrix AG, SGH Capital, The Tezos Foundation and others.

Archax is the UK’s first digital securities exchange, brokerage and custodian licensed by the FCA. Targeted at institutions, Archax aims to offer a bridge between the blockchain world and the existing investment space, by allowing institutional investors to custody and trade digital assets and cryptocurrencies alongside traditional securities.

The exchange is on track to formally launch in 1Q 2023, says Simon Barnby, Chief Marketing Officer. “Our custody services are already live and running, the exchange platform is live, and we’re now onboarding the first issuances in preparation for trading, so everything’s running to plan,” he says.

In addition to offering spot trading in cryptocurrencies Bitcoin and Ethereum, Archax plans to list a range of tokenised assets. “One area that we’re working on with abdrn, which is really exciting, is tokenising and creating digital representations of their funds,” says Barnby. “We’re also working on a range of regulated crypto exchange traded products (ETPs), which will act as a proxy for Bitcoin, Ethereum & so on. They will allow institutions to trade regulated instruments that settle in Crest and have ISIN codes, but which actually represent the underlying crypto assets.”

Barnby stresses that as an FCA-regulated entity, Archax’s focus is the institutional market, and the exchange’s membership will reflect that. “We’re currently going through the onboarding process with broker members, but we’re also targeting family offices, hedge funds, private banks and wealth managers,” he says. “We can also face off to individuals, as long as they can be considered professional investors. And we’re obviously talking to the big investment banks and financial markets firms, as well as prop trading firms and market makers, who will be providing liquidity on our crypto market.”

Technology for the regulated market is provided by Aquis Technologies, whose Aquis Matching Engine (AME) and Aquis Market Surveillance (AMS) systems will run in the Equinix LD4 datacentre and underpin the exchange. Archax has built and designed its own crypto matching engine, says Barnby, adding, “we’ve also built our own front end, which people can use to access the market. And we provide API access too. In time, we’ll integrate to other trading platforms.”

Russel Barlow, Global Head of Alternatives at abrdn, commented: “The digital assets ecosystem continues to grow at pace, and Archax’s success in this latest funding round underlines the appetite there is among investors to partner with organisations at the forefront of that shift. As momentum builds, Archax, and abrdn, are well placed to take advantage and meet growing client interest in digital assets that can be accessed through digital exchanges.”

Subscribe to our newsletter

Related content

WEBINAR

Upcoming Webinar: High-Performance Networks & Low-Latency Connectivity for Trading

10 June 2025 10:00am ET | 3:00pm London | 4:00pm CET Duration: 50 Minutes With financial markets becoming more complex and interconnected in today’s electronic trading environment, trading firms, exchanges, and infrastructure providers need to continually push the boundaries of network performance to stay ahead. Ultra-low latency, seamless connectivity, and resilient infrastructure are no longer...

BLOG

LTX Builds on Partnership Approach for Streamlining Fixed Income Trading Connectivity

Late last year, LTX, the AI-driven fixed income trading platform backed by Broadridge Financial Solutions, announced a strategic partnership with e-trading technology provider TransFICC, aiming to simplify connectivity for bond dealers by enabling faster onboarding to LTX’s platform through TransFICC’s One API for eTrading. The new partnership comes in the wake of a similar arrangement...

EVENT

Data Management Summit New York City

Now in its 15th year the Data Management Summit NYC brings together the North American data management community to explore how data strategy is evolving to drive business outcomes and speed to market in changing times.

GUIDE

Institutional Digital Assets Handbook 2024

Despite the setback of the FTX collapse, institutional interest in digital assets has grown markedly in the past 12 months, with firms of all sizes now acknowledging participation in some form. While as recently as a year ago, institutional trading firms were taking a cautious stance toward their use, the acceptance of tokenisation, stablecoins, and...