Wall Street giants look to back prime broker Hidden Road

Hidden Road Partners, a global credit network focused on institutional investors, is reportedly attracting the interest of leading Wall Street investment arms, not long after raising $50 million in its series A funding round in July.

Led by Castle Island Ventures and with participation from Citadel Securities, Hidden Road also received backing from leading crypto-focused venture firms like Coinbase Ventures and FTX Ventures.

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The startup offers prime broker services to mainstream companies looking to enter the crypto space, helping make it easy for them through credit intermediation, and tackling counterparty risks, archaic workflows and conflicts of interest. 

Wall Street banks and hedge funds eye startup

Despite the recent crypto turmoil, including as seen with the collapse of Three Arrows Capital, and crypto lenders Digital Voyager and Celsius Network going bankrupt, several Wall Street trading firms, hedge funds and top banks appear unfazed.

Hidden Road’s prime brokerage project, which offers its real-time services in foreign exchange and digital assets, looks to tick all the right boxes for most top 20 banks on Wall Street. The startup is in talks with many of these financial services providers.

As well as real-time credit risk management, Hidden Road allows institutional investors to access dollar-pegged custodial services. The company plays by market principles – no aspects such as running proprietary trading units that front-run customers, no over-the-counter (OTC) deals and does not offer venture capital or trade.

The startup runs its activities via capital raised from investors, and uses returns from credit financing extended to clients to pay its backers and for its operations.

Marc Asch founded Hidden Road Partners in 2018, and has over 80 employees with offices in New York, Singapore and London. Asch previously worked at SAC Capital and Point72 Asset Management.