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Swyftx Acquires Caleb & Brown
Swyftx Acquires Caleb & Brown

Transaction Overview

On July 1st, 2025, Swyftx, one of the largest Australian cryptocurrency exchanges, announced a definitive agreement to acquire Caleb & Brown, a high-net-worth-focused crypto brokerage, for an undisclosed amount.

 

Target: Caleb & Brown

Caleb and Brown is a Melbourne-based, high net worth focused crypto brokerage that specializes in personalized trading services across the digital asset landscape. Caleb & Brown focuses on the relationship model used successfully across traditional  financial services – every client that comes onto their platform gets assigned a broker to assist them in executing trades  and handling all customer service needs. Caleb and Brown’s core services include 1) Brokerage Services, which provide personalized 24/7 trading support for 250+ digital assets, 2) an OTC Desk, which provides high volume trading solutions with deep liquidity and competitive pricing, 3) the Caleb and Brown Asset Management, an actively managed crypto asset fund for accredited investor, 4) crypto custody. 

 

The business has more than AUD $2 billion of digital assets under custody and was founded by Rupert Hackett and Dr. Prash Puspanathan in 2016. C&B is led by CEO Jackson Zeng and has 64 team members across both Australia and the US. Caleb & Brown has not raised any outside capital. 

 

Architect Partners’ Observations

Architect Partners acted as the exclusive financial advisor to Caleb & Brown. 

 

Swyftx’s acquisition of Caleb & Brown marks the largest acquisition targeting high net worth crypto investors. It also reflects two important shifts in the evolution of crypto exchanges, particularly within the ANZ region.

 

First, high-net-worth client service is becoming a strategic differentiator. Exchanges are beginning to recognize that personalized brokerage and deep client relationships offer a competitive advantage while greatly reducing attrition. This is a model that high-net-worth clients are accustomed to in their financial lives. Caleb & Brown’s approach, which assigns a dedicated broker to every client, stands apart from the high-volume, low-touch models that dominate the market. Swyftx gains access not only to clients but also to an established business model that emphasizes trust, service, and retention in a way few crypto exchanges have pursued.

 

Second, this is a milestone moment for ANZ crypto M&A. While there have been many plays for global expansion by exchanges, this is the first of its kind in Australia moving into the US, signaling that the region is entering a more active phase of market maturity. 

 

We believe this transaction will serve as a catalyst for further strategic activity to expand globally and to augment services as companies seek differentiation in both product and customer segments.

 

Strategic Rationale

Swyftx is acquiring Caleb & Brown to expand into the United States via C&B’s regulatory framework, and to acquire the relationship model inherently required with a higher-tier customer base. This acquisition will grant Swyftx entry into the U.S. 12 to 24 months faster than otherwise possible organically. Furthermore, the acquisition diversifies Swyftx’s primarily retail client base to include 25k+ high net worth individuals in numerous countries. 

 

“Caleb & Brown has quietly established one of the most impressive brokerage offerings in the world, with a heavily differentiated private client service. We see enormous growth potential.” – Jason Titman

Alerts

Ripple Acquires Metaco

Arjun Mehra & Michael S. Klena
May 17, 2023
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Ripple Acquires Metaco For $250M

Transaction Overview

On May 17th, 2023 Ripple announced the acquisition of the digital asset custody technology provider, Metaco for $250M. 

 

Target: Metaco

Metaco provides digital asset custody infrastructure to global banks, fintechs, regulated exchanges, and large corporations. Metaco’s suite of products, branded Harmonize, is used by large financial institutions such as Citibank, GazpromBank, BBVA, and BNP Paribas, allowing their clients to trade, settle, transfer, and custody digital assets. Metaco’s technology uses a combination of Hardware Security Modules (HSM) and Multi-Party Computation (MPC) technologies, allowing for a mix of hot, warm, and cold digital asset storage. 

 

Metaco’s closest competitors include PolySign, Fireblocks, Copper, HexTrust, Anchorage Digital, Zodia Custody, Etana, and Komainu. 

 

The company was founded in 2015 in Switzerland by Adrien Treccani, CEO, and Nicolas Dorier, CTO and now has over 100 employees.  Metaco has raised a total of $21M in capital over three rounds, with their latest round taking place in June 2020 at a $46M post-money valuation, where they raised $17M in a Series A. Investors include Giesecke+Devrient Ventures (lead), Standard Chartered Ventures, Swisscom, Avaloq, FiveT Fintech, Zürcher Kantonalbank, and SIPCA Holdings. 

 

Buyer: Ripple

Ripple specializes in blockchain-based international payments. Their cross-border payment solution, RippleNet, has processed nearly $30B worth of volume and 20M transactions since it was first launched. Clients of Ripple include large institutions and governments including SBI, Nium, Tranglo, Siam Commercial Bank, and the Monetary Authority of Bhutan. 

 

Investors in Ripple include GV, Accenture Venture, a16z, Founders Fund, and Lightspeed, with a total of over 86 investors. Ripple’s last disclosed equity valuation was $15B in January 2022’s secondary sale of equity. XRP, the native cryptocurrency of the Ripple ecosystem, has a token market capitalization of $23B, making them the 6th largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization globally as of May 17, 2023.

 

Ripple is currently undergoing a lawsuit with the SEC that was filed, in 2020, against Ripple alleging that they raised over $1.3 billion through an unregistered, ongoing digital asset securities offering. According to CEO Brad Garlinghouse, Ripple has over $1 billion of cash on its balance sheet. 

 

Ripple was founded in 2012 by Chris Larsen, Executive Chairman, and Jed McCaleb. Brad Garlinghouse has been the CEO since 2017 and leads the firm’s ~900 employees. The company is headquartered in San Francisco, California.

 

This is the first major acquisition by Ripple and the firm is an active strategic investor, having invested in 15+ private firms since 2021.

 

Transaction Parameters

Ripple acquired Metaco for $250M, consisting of 50% cash and 50% equity, in its first major acquisition. Metaco will become a wholly-owned, independent unit under Ripple, led by the current Metaco CEO, Adrien Treccani.

 

Comparable digital asset custodian acquisitions include Galaxy Digital | GK8 ($44M, M&A Alert), Bitpanda | Trustology (ND, M&A Alert), Celsius | GK8 ($115M, M&A Alert), Genesis | Vo1t (ND), PayPal | Curv (~$200M, M&A Alert), Voyager Digital | Ethos.io ($4M), Binance | Trust Wallet (ND), and Coinbase | Xapo ($68M).

 

Strategic Rationale

Ripple seeks to transform the $156T cross-border payment market, has initiatives focused on the emerging opportunity for Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs) and has aspirations to allow the issuance and settlement of any type of tokenized asset as that market develops.  A common theme among each of these capabilities is ensuring the safekeeping and security of these payments and digital assets. Metaco’s custody technology and related products allow Ripple to protect client assets, control the evolution of the technology and related services as needs dictate and represents a potentially attractive new revenue stream as assets under custody scale.

 

Architect Partners’ Observations

There are several dynamics within the custody market that suggest further strategic transactions will likely occur.

 

The first is regulatory guidance, particularly in the US.  Recent regulator announcements suggest that only registered Qualified Custodians (QCs) are allowed to custody digital and crypto assets.  Few QCs exist today.   Further, regulators have guided that the function of custody needs to be separated from execution venues, which while consistent with how traditional assets like equities are handled, flies in the face of current common practice for crypto assets.

 

Second, companies like Northern Trust, BNY Mellon, State Street, JP Morgan, and Euroclear have built substantial custody businesses protecting traditional assets over the past 100 years. Many of these businesses have been inhibited, by both regulatory uncertainty and brand risk, from aggressively entering the crypto and digital asset custody markets. This will change and represents both a threat and an opportunity for those building specialized digital and crypto asset custody businesses.

 

Third, the crypto winter we’ve experienced has effectively put a pause on assets under custody (AUC) growth which has meant flat or declining revenue for many existing crypto custody specialists, requiring financial staying power and conviction that an upturn is coming.

Ripple acquires Metaco Ripple acquires Metaco