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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

Crypto M&A Snapshot

Week of May 27 – June 2

Eric F. Risley
June 2, 2024
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Does an institutional crypto asset trader care if the trade occurs on a centralized exchange like Coinbase, a decentralized exchange like Uniswap or via a more informal, over the counter venue?  The nuanced answer is yes but the simple answer, much of the time, is no.  What is desired is the ability to make an informed decision with the necessary information and the ability to act on that information.  In the world of traditional institutional trading the trusted market data and software that enables this is called an Order Management System (OMS) complemented by the Execution Management System (EMS).  

 

In traditional financial markets, the OMS and EMS have been critical for the institutional trader for years, but until recently, this technology had not been available in crypto. In traditional finance, there are only a handful of exchanges, whereas in crypto there are dozens of major exchanges that orders must be routed to for optimal execution. Institutions were forced to build their own version (very hard and expensive) or have a limited view of the market and depend on a few trading partners to execute their desired strategy and trades.  Perhaps fine when markets are relatively inefficient and algorithmic trading strategies were “rich with profit”, however, those days are largely gone.

 

Talos is one of the few companies who have built a truly institutional-grade OMS | EMS to bring the necessary full market visibility to sophisticated crypto traders.  Others include CoinRoutes and Elwood Technologies.  Talos is backed by sophisticated trading market savvy institutional investors, including General Atlantic, DRW, Fidelity, Citigroup and BNY Mellon.  This week Talos announced the acquisition of Skolem, a peer but focused exclusively on DeFi execution markets, an increasingly important execution venue for institutional traders.  This follows Talos’ recent acquisitions of Cloudwall and D3X Systems.

 

Talos, and their lead growth investor, General Atlantic, are executing the time proven strategy of product extension via acquisition.  Benefits of this strategy, rather than building these capabilities internally, include accelerated time to market, acquiring not just a proven product but the talent that built it and adding customers and associated revenue.  Challenges are certainly present as well, including integrating the products into a cohesive single product (in this case) and onboarding new talent as a group.  This playbook has been deployed successfully for years by tech companies and will continue to be the primary driver of crypto-related acquisitions for some time.