Today Standard Chartered’s SC Ventures and Japan’s SBI Holdings announced a Digital Asset Joint Venture in the UAE, with $100 million to invest in ventures.
“Our Digital Asset Joint Venture plans to make strategic and minority investments in areas such as market infrastructure, risk management and compliance tools, DeFi, tokenisation, consumer payments, and the Metaverse,” said Alex Manson, CEO, SC Ventures. “This is one of several strategic initiatives and we will continue to invest and expand our footprint in the region as well as across the digital assets ecosystem.”
Although based in the UAE, the target is global investments from seed to Series C.
This is the latest collaboration between Standard Chartered and prolific Japanese investor SBI. In the middle of last year SC Ventures and SBI announced a fintech and digital asset ecosystem collaboration. That was followed by a joint venture between Standard Chartered’s Zodia Custody and SBI for digital asset custody in Japan. And two months later, SBI led the $36 million funding round for Zodia Custody.
In May Zodia Custody announced plans to launch digital asset custody in Dubai. Last month it unveiled an Australian custody venture and a new SAF3 brand that will take it beyond basic custody.
