Parfin – a web3 infrastructure startup – has just concluded a round led by Framework Ventures, one of the key principals in Silicon Valley when it comes to the crypto world.
Framework has $1.4 billion in assets earmarked for crypto/blockchain startups.
This funding, of $15 million, also involved L4 Venture Builder, which was created recently. corporate investment capital from B3. Parfin is L4’s first crypto investment, which is R$600 million to research startups in the financial market.
The round was followed by Valor Capital and Alexia Ventures, who were already solid investors.
Marcos Ferriato, who has been a partner at BTG and CTO for years, and Alex Boileau, a Brazilian programmer who made his career in London at multinational companies like Siemens – teamed up to found Parfin in 2019.
The two met in July of that year, when Marcus was spending some time in London.
“We have seen that the financial market will eventually end up adopting and using cryptocurrencies blockchain Marcos told the Brazil Journal. “And Brazil was a market where nobody was doing that and it has huge potential. The population is very large and they love the technology, and the regulations are favorable too.”
Parveen already has three products to market.
The first is what you call “encryption as a service”, which uses B3 itself as a client.
Basically, your API is wired up to 20 exchanges different, allowing any bank or broker to offer cryptocurrency trading within their platforms.
Banks have the flexibility to choose which exchanges they want to deal with. Accordingly, we will always obtain the best rate among all connected brokerages and offer it to them,” Marcus said.
The second product is a custodial solution that allows brokers, banks and institutional investors to hold cryptocurrencies purchased from exchanges in offshore custody – avoiding the risks of a situation like that of FTX.
“If you deposit cryptocurrency on an exchange, they send it to a central wallet where everything is mixed,” said Alex, the startup’s CTO. “With custody you separate, it’s an extra layer of security.”
The third product has just been launched: a licensed private blockchain network called Parchain.
In simple terms, Parchain provides the necessary infrastructure for companies to tokenize any type of asset, ensuring privacy and reducing costs, Marcus said.
Today, when a company like Vórtx tokenizes bonds, for example, they usually use blockchain General.
The problem with this is that “anyone on the public network can see the transactions that take place, including their competitor. In addition, the cost of a private network is much lower because it does not charge a fee per transaction.”
According to him, Partin’s authorized blockchain also ensures interoperability with other private and public networks. Namely: they will be able to send tokens to other blockchain networks.
Parfin has about R$500 million in assets under custody, of which R$200 million comes from crypto-as-a-service and the rest from the tokenization portion. The startup is primarily paid for by fees.
Parfin’s run comes at a time when the sea is rough in the crypto world – the FTX case has sparked yet another wave of skepticism across the industry.
“Last year was a very difficult year and the FTX storyline could have spoiled the Tour,” said Marcus. “But our investors have been very confident in the technology, and in fact our solutions help mitigate situations like FTX, providing greater diversification and risk control.”
Peter Arbex