Goldman Sachs and Barclays rely on Alan Howard's crypto platform

Goldman Sachs and Barclays have invested in Elwood Technologies, the trading platform for cryptocurrencies founded by the British hedge fund billionaire Alan Howard to venture a new bet on the mainstream acceptance of digital assets.

The two banks together with the risk capital Dawn Capital and the risk departments of German lenders Commerzbank and Galaxy Digital, the crypto financial group of the US billionaire Mike Novogratz. The round, Elwood's first external fundraising, evaluated the six-year-old company with around $ 500 million, according to the people familiar with the conditions.

Elwood rely on the fact that traditional financial institutions-from hedge funds to banks and family offices-put more money into digital assets despite the severe decline in prices for crypto assets. According to the data from CryptoCOMPARE compiled by the Financial Times, the market value of the 500 most important digital assets compared to its highs last year has dropped by more than half. Bitcoin fell under $ 30,000 for the first time since July.

The Elwood financing round was agreed before the recent weekly descent. The company was founded as a vehicle for managing Howard's personal crypto assets and provides large investors in digital assets market data and trade infrastructure.

chief executive James Stickland shrugged and called the fundraising campaign "a further confirmation of the longevity of crypto".

"We will receive investments from financial institutions that do not expect to achieve massive returns within 15 minutes. They invest in the infrastructure," he said. "I think it's a calming message."

The $ 70 million financing is strengthening a change of direction for Elwood, which concentrated on asset management in 2019 and plans to offer portfolios of crypto funds for institutional investors. Elwood is now selling the technology that it has developed to manage its own cryptoinvestment to other customers, said Stickland, who joined the company in 2020 to become a Software provider.

"In view of the increasing institutional demand for cryptocurrency, we have actively expanded our market presence and our skills in order to do justice to customer demand," said Mathew McDermott, Global Head of Digital Assets at Goldman Sachs.

Elwood offers a technical platform that resembles the Bloomberg terminal or the Aladdin portfolio management system from BlackRock, according to Stickland, which aims to get into the existing trading software from financial institutions to help you with the administration and trade of your crypto portfolios.

In February, the company announced a partnership with Bloomberg to connect its software to the order management system of the US trading platform.

"If the infrastructure is not available and you cannot convince yourself of the quality of the underlying architecture, you will never really get the volume that meets the opportunity," said Stickland.

The majority will remain in the possession of Howard, who was his main investor before the transaction. The co -founder of the hedge fund Brevan Howard is one of the most prominent British investors who have dared to jump into the cryptoma markets.