Joining the growing crypto market, Flowdesk has secured about €28 million for its digital asset infrastructure and trading platform. The company provides its solution for web3 players, including cryptocurrency token issuers.
Founded in 2020 by Guilhem Chaumont, Paul Bugnot, François Cluzeau and Balthazar Giraux, Flowdesk is a digital asset service provider that is fueling interconnection in the crypto and digital asset market. The Paris-based startup just picked up around €28 million in new funding for its platform, marking a continued interest in this sector.
Leading investors contributed to the funding, including Eurazeo, Aglaé Ventures, ISAI, Speedinvest, Fabric.vc, Ledger, and Coinbase, as well as 20 well-known business angels, including Alexandre Prot (Qonto), Nicolas Julia (Sorare), Pascal Gauthier (Ledger) and Sébastien Borget (The Sandbox).
After working in the crypto market for some time, the founders discovered some gaps in the market, and the need for a more cohesive marketplace and infrastructure to facilitate the liquidity of crypto-asset projects. So, they decided to develop an infrastructure that would allow them to interconnect and trade on these exchanges while guaranteeing the scalability needed to support the booming crypto industry. Just like that, Flowdesk was developed.
The fintech company represents a trading infrastructure that allows interconnection with more than 60 cryptocurrency exchange platforms. It offers four key services – asset management; brokerage; custody; and, market-making.
The most differentiating product is the market-making capability. It addresses the needs of the majority of c cryptocurrency issuers with significant liquidity issues. By making its technology and traders available to these players, Flowdesk allows them to manage their cryptocurrency token liquidity themselves with their own funds. The service is called Market-Making-as-a-Service in reference to digital models based on simply providing technology to customers who commit their own resources.
Thomas Turelier, Vice President at Eurazeo said: “An increasing number of companies are issuing tokens and are thus confronted with the complexity of managing a liquid asset in different markets. Most of these companies do not, however, see themselves as financial market professionals: they are technology providers, game developers… A financial infrastructure such as the one proposed by Flowdesk is therefore crucial to allow all these web3 players to develop with the least possible friction while trusting a regulated player aligned with its customers in terms of financial interests. ”
While the crypto industry is continuing to grow at a rapid pace, so is Flowdesk. The company now employs 35 people and plans to grow to 100 by the end of 2022 – representing growing demand for its service.
This new funding will support the fintech startup in its plans to grow and scale, as well as develop a complete platform for its clients. The aim is to enable users to carry out the simplest to the most complex trading operations themselves – a model that will contribute to Flowdesk’s position as a leader in Market-Making-as-a-Service.
Guilhem Chaumont, co-founder and CEO of Flowdesk added: “This fundraising is a key step that will allow us to accelerate at all levels to meet the growing demand in Europe, Asia and North America. It will also give us the means to develop our technological infrastructure to meet the new needs that will emerge in market making. Our vision is that within 10 years a large proportion of assets will be tokenized using blockchain technology, which will require a rethinking of financial services with a more scalable and counterparty agnostic approach. We will have to scale up quickly to integrate this new financial situation.”
