PARIS–(BUSINESS WIRE)–A trading infrastructure made in France
Active in the crypto-currency sector for several years, the four co-founders of Flowdesk, Guilhem Chaumont, Paul Bugnot, François Cluzeau and Balthazar Giraux have been working in this sector since 2017 after careers in banking, algorithmic trading, engineering and entrepreneurship. During their respective experiences, they were marked by the compartmentalization and fracturing of marketplaces and the technological barrier to properly manage the liquidity of crypto-asset projects. In 2020, they chose to develop an infrastructure that would allow them to interconnect and trade on these exchanges, while ensuring the redundancy and scalability needed to support the growing number of crypto projects.
An innovative product: Market-Making-as-a-Service (MMaaS)
Flowdesk is thus at the origin of a trading infrastructure that allows interconnection with more than 60 cryptocurrency exchange platforms. A technology that its teams use on behalf of Flowdesk as well as for their customers and which allows them to offer four types of services:
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Asset Management
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Brokerage
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Keep
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Market making
Market making is Flowdesk’s flagship service and its most differentiating product. It meets the needs of the majority of the 10,000 cryptocurrency issuers with significant liquidity issues. By making its technology and traders available to these players, Flowdesk allows them to manage the liquidity of their cryptocurrency tokens themselves with their own funds. The service is called Market-Making-as-a-Service in reference to digital models based on simply providing technology to customers who commit their own resources.
A decisive fundraiser to change scale
While the Flowdesk team was made up of only its four co-founders at the start of 2021, the company now employs 35 people and plans to recruit to reach 100 employees before the end of 2022. A change of scale for which a fundraising funds were needed. Flowdesk is indeed facing extremely strong demand for market making and after opening offices in Singapore in March 2022, is now targeting the United States to deploy sales and trading teams as well as legal compliance specialists, a a particularly strategic subject for the company and its constantly evolving regulatory market.
For Guilhem Chaumont, co-founder and CEO of Flowdesk: “This fundraising is a key step that will allow us to accelerate at all levels to meet the growing demand in Europe, Asia and North America. It will also give us the means to develop our technological infrastructure to meet the new needs that will emerge in market making. Our vision is that within 10 years, a large portion of assets will be tokenized using blockchain technology, which will require rethinking financial services with a more scalable and counterparty-agnostic approach. We will have to change scale quickly to integrate this new financial situation.
For Thomas Turelier, Vice-Chairman of Eurazeo: “A growing number of companies issue tokens and therefore face the complexity of managing a liquid asset in different markets. Most of these companies, however, do not consider themselves financial market professionals: they are technology providers, game developers… A financial infrastructure such as that offered by Flowdesk is therefore crucial to enable all these players in the web3 to grow with as little friction as possible while trusting a regulated player aligned with its customers in terms of financial interests.
For Cyril Guenoun, partner at Aglaé Ventures: “We were convinced by Flowdesk’s positioning as a technology provider for cryptocurrency issuers. This emerging and fast-growing market needs scalable tools to ensure safe and sustainable development. The team has proven the robustness of its solution as well as a business model adapted to its customers. With an already international presence and high speed of execution, Flowdesk has the means to drive the growth of financial services for cryptocurrencies.
Innovate to empower customers
Another ambition of this fundraiser is to continue to invest in innovation with the aim of developing a complete platform for Flowdesk customers, allowing them to carry out the simplest to the most complex trading operations themselves. A model that will contribute to Flowdesk’s position as a leader in Market-Making-as-a-Service.
About Flowdesk
Founded in 2020 by Guilhem Chaumont, Paul Bugnot, François Cluzeau and Balthazar Giraux, Flowdesk is a digital asset service provider registered in France with the Autorité des marchés financiers (AMF). Flowdesk is at the origin of a trading infrastructure that allows interconnection with more than 60 cryptocurrency exchange platforms. The company offers four types of services: asset management, brokerage, custody and market making.
The company has offices in Paris and Singapore.
More information on: Flowdesk
About Eurazeo
Eurazeo is a leading global investment group with more than €32 billion under management and one of the most active technology investors in Europe. The group has supported ambitious entrepreneurs from Seed to pre-IPO with investments in Onfido, Tink, Criteo, Talend, Swile, Mano Mano, Wefox, BackMarket, Payfit, Alma, GitGuardian, Doctolib, Contentsquare, Dataiku, Qonto and many others
About Aglae
Aglaé Ventures, the “tech” investment vehicle of Groupe Arnault, invests between €100k and €100m in fast-growing technology companies. Present in France and the United States, Aglaé Ventures focuses on SaaS software, marketplaces and content platforms. Companies backed by Aglaé Ventures include Airbnb, Algolia, Backmarket, Databricks, Lyft, Meero, Riskified, Slack and Spotify.
About ISAI
Launched in 2010, ISAI is the Tech Entrepreneurs’ Fund and brings together a community of more than 350 entrepreneurs around the world. ISAI invests in differentiated projects led by ambitious teams that it carefully selects and actively supports. ISAI Gestion, with more than 500 million euros under management, aims to finance and support high-potential Tech companies, in the seed/post-seed phase or when they have already reached the break-even point. (Tech Growth/LBO).
