Zodia Custody is an institutional grade crypto custody solutions provider powered by Standard Chartered bank in association with Northern Trust. The firm operates as an investments holding company and serves customers in the United Kingdom. The firm aims to unlock the future of institutional investing by offering crypto-asset custodian services that truly understand custody and enable institutional investors to safely and securely participate in this new future of investing.
The firm that operates as Standard Chartered’s custodial unit has recently announced the conclusion of a Series A funding round that yielded $36 million in funds. The funding round was led by Japan’s SBI Holdings and saw participation from other from the Bank’s venture arm, SC Ventures. This announcement marked the dilution of the British Bank’s ownership over the subsidiary. The funding followed the launch of Zodia’s operations in Japan in joint ownership with SBI Holdings.
The proceeds acquired from this financing round will be used to facilitate geographic expansion beyond its current locations in Asia and Europe. The firm has shown interest in opportunities in the Middle East. Additionally, the funding will be utilized in adding more digital assets to Zodia’s coverage. The firm is eyeing staked ETH, whose demand has been on the rise in recent days following its recent Shapella upgrade to Ethereum blockchain. With these token, Zodia is looking to further develop its off-exchange settling network.
This funding has shows institutions’ interests in the need for custodial services to provide crypto storage services for institutional investors. This has been evident in recent days as earlier this month, crypto custodian Copper struck a partnership with crypto exchange OKX to allow institutional clients to keep their assets safeguarded while delegating the assets to trade on OKX’s exchange platform.
Zodia’s custodial services offer several benefits to institutional clients including loss prevention through heightened security that helps prevent the loss of private keys that give access to assets stored on the distributed ledger. The firm also utilizes “No Trust” approach that combines robust multi-pronged fraud and risk detection to prevent fraud while enforcing hardware segregation of duties. The hardware segregation of duty is enforced in custodial and trading venues. Most importantly, Zodia’s platform enforces proof of ownership to create links between clients and assets therefore, ensuring transparency and security of assets.
According to Julian Sawyer, the CEO of Zodia Custody, the future direction of the digital asset industry is clear. Investors are demanding greater assurance and rigor as compliance to this standards is crucial in the future evolution of the sector. Zodia Custody is based in London and majorly owned by Standard Chartered Bank with Northern Trust, a US bank, owning a minority stake in the firm. With the firm’s joint venture with SBI Holdings to open a crypto asset custody in Japan, Zodia is poised to tap into the vast Asia market and become a leading provider of institutional-grade custodial services in the future.
