Taurus raises USD 65 million to further develop its digital asset platform and fuel international expansion
- Series B led by Credit Suisse includes participation from three other major financial institutions, Deutsche Bank, Pictet Group and Arab Bank Switzerland, as well as stock-listed real-estate group Investis.
- Taurus will continue to invest in its platform to service the world’s largest banks on any type of digital assets: crypto-currencies, tokenized securities and digital currencies.
- Taurus will accelerate its technology sales expansion with new offices in Europe, UAE, and soon after in the Americas and South-East Asia to get closer to its clients.
February 14, 2023, Geneva, Switzerland - Taurus SA (“Taurus”), the leading digital asset infrastructure provider for financial institutions in Europe, is pleased to announce a USD 65 million Series B capital raise from strategic investors.
Taurus’ Series B round is led by Credit Suisse and includes participation from new institutional investors such as Deutsche Bank, Pictet Group, Cedar Mundi Ventures, as well as from Series A investors, Arab Bank Switzerland and Investis, a stock-listed real-estate group. Taurus co-founders, Lamine Brahimi, Sébastien Dessimoz, Oren-Olivier Puder and Dr. Jean-Philippe Aumasson, remain the largest shareholders of Taurus and at the helm of the Company. The transaction was approved by the Swiss regulator, FINMA.
The funds will be used to support Taurus’ growth strategy across three main priorities: (1) hire top engineering talent to further develop what is considered as the most complete platform in the industry; (2) get closer to clients and expand the sales and customer success organization of its infrastructure solutions with new offices Europe, UAE and soon after in the Americas and South-East Asia, and (3) maintain the most stringent security, risk and compliance requirements across product lines, processes and organizations.
The preferred platform for Tier 1 banks. Expanding client footprint with large consumer brands
Taurus already works with more than 25 financial institutions and corporate clients in eight countries and three continents, including systemically important financial institutions, retail and online banks, private banks, crypto-banks, investment banks, and broker-dealers. Amongst its clients are banks such as Arab Bank Switzerland, CACEIS, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, Pictet, Swissquote, Vontobel. These achievements allowed Taurus to establish itself as the #1 digital asset infrastructure provider for Tier 1 banks in Europe.
Lamine Brahimi, co-founder and Managing Partner of Taurus, said: “Raising USD 65mn in the current market environment tells a lot about the quality of Taurus’ people and products. We are proud to welcome such high-profile investors and benefit from their expertise to further develop one of the richest platforms in the industry, covering any type of digital assets, way beyond cryptocurrencies.”
André Helfenstein, CEO, Credit Suisse (Switzerland) Ltd., commented: “The strategic partnership with Taurus is a cornerstone of the Swiss Bank division’s digital assets strategy with the ambition to become the leading Swiss bank in that space. We continue to embrace new and innovative technologies and expect to soon launch several digital asset services for clients both on the issuing and the investment side.”
Sabih Behzad, Head of Digital Assets and Currencies Transformation, Deutsche Bank, concluded: “We will integrate Taurus‘ technology in our own IT environment. This will form a key part of our digital asset custody platform and will make it easier for us to develop and roll out our digital asset custody offering. Through this investment, Deutsche Bank is delighted to partner on the development of the market for digital assets.”
The most complete platform in the industry: custody, tokenization, regulated marketplace
Since its inception in 2018, Taurus has continuously invested in its proprietary technology to build the most complete platform in the industry, allowing clients to manage any digital assets. Concretely:
- Custody: Taurus-PROTECT provides ultra-secure storage and transfer of hundreds of digital assets including support for staking, decentralized finance (DeFi), tokenized securities, and digital currencies;
- Tokenization: Taurus-CAPITAL provides issuance, deployment, and lifecycle management of any type of tokenized assets (equity, debt, structured products, physical assets, NFTs);
- Regulated marketplace: Trading of tokenized securities on Taurus' T-DX platform, one of the first regulated marketplaces in the world.
Dr. JP Aumasson, co-founder and chief security officer, Taurus, added:
“Our team is the only one to have built an end-to-end infrastructure while controlling the full technology stack including blockchain-specific protocols, as well as HSM and MPC technologies. This strategic advantage allows Taurus to execute faster than others, without the dependency and risk associated with third-party providers. As a result, our clients can launch rapidly and scale new use cases”.
Looking forward: support issuers on the digitization of private assets
Taurus believes that the digitization of private assets represents the next trillion-dollar opportunity for the digital asset industry to grow to USD 10+ trillions. Taurus has been involved in tokenizing 15 deals with Swiss-based and EU-based issuers including banks and asset managers as well as SMEs and start-ups. Taurus was also recently selected by a stock-listed insurance company to tokenize real-assets. Clients that have entered or are exploring tokenization of assets benefit from:
- Taurus’ end-to-end infrastructure that goes way beyond basic custody of crypto-assets. Taurus’ clients are able to create any type of tokenized products in two clicks and service them with automated workflows and zero lines of code. These capabilities are unrivaled worldwide;
- Taurus’ regulated infrastructure. In April 2021, Taurus obtained a FINMA license as a securities firm and operator of an organized trading facility. In June 2021, Taurus launched https://t-dx.com/, the first regulated marketplace for tokenized assets. Clients can benefit from a flexible and compliant marketplace to provide secondary market solutions to their end-clients.
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