Credit Suisse has led a $65 million Series B round in Swiss crypto infrastructure provider Taurus, with participation from other major financial institutions.
Credit Suisse was joined by new institutional investors such as Deutsche Bank, Pictet Group, Cedar Mundi Ventures, as well as from Series A investors, Arab Bank Switzerland and Investis.
Founded in April 2018, Taurus provides enterprise-grade infrastructure to issue, custody and trade any digital assets: cryptocurrencies including staking, tokenized assets and digital currencies.
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. Clients include Arab Bank Switzerland, CACEIS, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, Pictet, Swissquote, Vontobel.
André Helfenstein, CEO, Credit Suisse Switzerland, comments: "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."
Taurus intends to use the new capital to hire more engineering talent and to open new offices in Europe, UAE and soon after in the Americas and South-East Asia
Lamine Brahimi, co-founder and managing partner of Taurus, says: "Raising $65 million 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."
Sabih Behzad, head of digital assets and currencies transformation, Deutsche Bank, comments: "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."