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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

Insights

Week of December 4 – December 10

J. Todd White
December 13, 2023
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21 Crypto Private Financings Raised ~$249M 

Rolling 3-Month-Average: $166M

Rolling 52-Week Average: $179M

 

Private financings announced this week came in with a healthy $249M raised across 21 deals, representing consistent deal flow and a robust amount of capital after a few banner weeks. The majority were smaller and earlier stage deals, with the $165M announced by Swan Bitcoin standing out as the sole larger raise.

 

Swan is an investment platform founded in 2019 that provides asset management services to investors seeking to accumulate bitcoin. This week they announced a pair of financings completed in 2023 – $40M to fund expansion plans and another $125M to support PE and venture investing across the Bitcoin ecosystem – with an additional $150M planned for 2024.

 

At the core, Swan develops investment software to facilitate consistent accumulation of Bitcoin with low costs and friction. They are focused exclusively on Bitcoin investment and savings, and intend to use their new expansion capital to move into institutional products. This will include bitcoin-backed lending products, a potentially controversial move after high-profile meltdowns among the likes of Celsius, BlockFi, and Genesis. But the wake has left a void of lending capacity, and Swan feels well-positioned to enter the space as a trusted institutional-grade player after withstanding and emerging from the crypto carnage of 2022. They intend to do so with two key differentiators from other failed crypto lenders – first, focusing exclusively on Bitcoin-backed loans, and second, by insisting they will never rehypothecate funds to invest or lend client assets outside of their own accounts.

 

Details, including valuation and participation, on the round(s) are scant, but the investor validation from a sizeable raise during a sparse year for big rounds seems clear. And this is yet another example of the ongoing evolution from speculation to investment, which we believe to be a healthy sign of maturation for Bitcoin and the crypto asset class in general.