Symbiont raises $1.25M to develop ‘smart securities’

Symbiont, a New York-based company that is developing the first issuance and trading platform for “smart securities” on blockchain technology, announced Tuesday it has secured $1.25 million in seed funding from prominent financial market leaders. Early investors include Duncan Niederauer, former CEO of the NYSE Euronext; Matt Andresen, founder of the Island ECN and trading head at Citadel; Getco, LLC founders Dan Tierney and Stephen Schuler through Wicklow Capital; Scott Carmilani, chairman and CEO of Allied World Assurance Company; and Celeridem FinTech Fund. A Series A round of institutional investment is slated to close in the third quarter in 2015.

The company said in a press release that the development of smart securities strives to transform the way that issuance, trading, and settlement occur in the capital markets. By making programmable versions of traditional services available on a distributed ledger, the platform will enable institutions and retail users to issue, trade, and process a range of instruments more efficiently in a single, international, decentralized, and distributed peer-to-peer financial network.

“This is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to leverage this previously unimaginable technology for the greater good of investors, financial institutions, and global financial markets,” said Mark Smith, co-founder and CEO of Symbiont, in the press release. “The blockchain not only has the potential to democratize markets but to drive down the cost of doing business across all sectors.”

Niederauer, managing member of 555 Capital and a member of the Symbiont board of directors, for whom this is the first investment in the Bitcoin realm, said, “Symbiont is bridging the gap between Wall Street and the emerging blockchain ecosystem. It’s an exciting, timely and much-needed development for the long-term health of the markets.”

Symbiont said the issuance of the first smart securities is expected later this year.

Image credit: William Warby