TX Ventures invests in CLST, an Institutional Digital Asset Lending Venue

Zurich and New York  27 July 2022 – The institutional digital asset lending venue CLST has successfully closed a seed round. The funding round was led by Spartan Group and also included the Tier 1 investors Coinbase Ventures, Kraken Ventures, GSR, Menai Financial Group, Luno Expeditions, and TX Ventures - the VC investment arm of TX Group. 

Committed to integrating the traditional market and crypto money market, CLST  fosters the institutional gateway for collateralized and uncollateralized lending. 
CLST offers institutions safe exposure to the growing, global digital asset marketplace via the borrow and lend proces. As a one-stop-shop for peer-to-peer lending, CLST attracts digital asset lenders and borrowers such as hedge funds, trading firms, treasuries, market makers, and crypto banks seeking automated digital asset collateral management features. With its “one click” financial  data sharing,  lenders and borrowers can accurately and efficiently evaluate their pending relationship pre-trade, ultimately mitigating the risk associated with lack of counterparty risk assessment in the lending industry. Automation and security in collateral management, combined with counterparty risk assessment are the  key pillars of CLST. 

By capitalizing on the recent immaturity of the crypto debt market which led to the financial distresses of market leaders, CLST is effectively automating bilateral price negotiation and settlement for the unsecured and collateralized short-term debt market.  With more than 30 institutions participating in the network after soft launching earlier this year, CLST is going live with a wide market version of the application later this year. 

Michael Guzik, founder and CEO of CLST: “CLST sits at the nexus of the crypto asset short-term debt market and traditional financial market. In tandem with our world class investors and partners, we are establishing a market for stablecoins, digital assets, fiat, and beyond – the ‘new money’. With the new funding, CLST will bolster its peer-to-peer infrastructure through increased operational and market expansion, ultimately creating an ease of lending that has not yet been made possible between institutional entities, until now.”

Leeor Groen, Director at Spartan Group: “With the current market environment exposing points of failure, it is clear that the crypto industry needs a better way to manage liquidity and counterparty risk as it continues to mature. We are glad to back the CLST team as they launch the leading platform to facilitate both institutional borrowing and lending as well as treasury management solutions for digital asset market participants.”

Krzysztof Bialkowski, Investment Director at TX Ventures - the VC investment arm of TX Group: “We are excited to add CLST, an innovative crypto lending company, to our FinTech portfolio and to support the team in their growth journey going forward. The recent developments in the market have shown the urgent need for further professionalization and structuring in this highly attractive segment. CLST has showcased strong initial traction and is well positioned to create value in the crypto market. We therefore strongly believe that the CLST team will succeed in becoming a game changer in the institutional crypto lending ecosystem.”