The assets of bankrupt enterprise blockchain startup Symbiont are up for sale following its December bankruptcy. Symbiont triggered the Chapter 11 filing because it was unable to repay a $2.3m secured loan to LM Funding. Now LM Funding has made a stalking horse bid, setting the floor price of the assets at $2.6 million.
Recent Symbiont clients include State Street, SWIFT and Vanguard.
Given Symbiont owed $2.3m to LM Funding on December 1, we’re guessing $2.6 million is close to what LM Funding is currently owed. It claims there are currently no other bidders, and an auction is “anticipated to take place on May 26, 2023”.
If LM Funding is the winning bidder, it wants to pursue joint ventures and other alliances to use Symbiont’s Assembly blockchain to issue and manage various kinds of financial instruments.
LM Funding is not unfamiliar with blockchain as it operates a crypto mining business. However, the reason for it publicizing its stalking horse offer is to attract other bidders. Doubtless, it would rather get repaid for its secured loan than end up owning Symbiont’s intellectual property (IP). Symbiont’s IP is worth far more with an intact development team than on its own.
That’s why one of the early parties interested in a deal was a team already intimately familiar with the code. However, that January bid to provide $6 million in interim funding fell through.
