With laser, Nomura is digitally aimed at the crypto venture area

With laser, Nomura is digitally aimed at the crypto venture area

The financial giant Nomura based in Japan intends to expand its ambitions in the field of digital assets with a new crypto-oriented company that invests in the innovators of the industry and offer institutional customers trade and other investment products.

The company called Laser Digital will initially focus on risk capital-investments in companies that focus on defi, centralized finance, web3 and blockchain infrastructure, announced the investment bank on Wednesday.

The company intends to concentrate on secondary trade and investor products, as it would like to offer further services in the coming months.

Steven Ashley and Jez Mohiden become chairman or CEO of the new company. The Holding Society of Laser Digital founded Nomura in Switzerland.

"staying at the top of the digital innovation is a top priority for Nomura," said Kentaro Okuda, CEO of Nomura, in an explanation. "For this reason, in addition to our efforts to diversify our business at the beginning of this year, we announced that Nomura will found a new subsidiary that focuses on digital assets."

Nomura announced for the first time in May - a month after its digital company founded it as part of a restructuring of his future innovation department.

"The new company will enable us to provide us with an institutional customer access to a wide range of new products and services and to make a significant contribution to responsible innovations in the ecosystem of the digital assets," said Ashley at the time.

Ashley, former head of the Nomura wholesale department, has resigned to digitally lead laser. Christoph Willcox previously CEO by JPMorgan Asset Management, said in this function on October 1st in a explanation.

Mohideen, which is now CEO from Laser Digital, came to Nomura in 2018 as a global chief digital officer. Before working at Nomura, he directed the development of systematic commercial capacities at the hedge fund Brevan Howard.

nomura is not new in the crypto area. In 2020 there was a partnership with the cryptoasset manager Coinhares and the security company for digital assets Ledger to found the KRYPTO depot bank Komainu.

A Nomura spokesman did not immediately answer a request for comment.

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The contribution Nomura Targets Crypto Venture Space with Laser Digital is not a financial advice.