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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 November 27 – December 3

J. Todd White
December 3, 2023
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25 Crypto Private Financings Raised ~$316M 

Rolling 3-Month-Average: $166M

Rolling 52-Week Average: $179M

 

The ability for different blockchains to communicate and transact with each other is one of the more critical infrastructure needs for the Web3 ecosystem to realize the full scale of its potential.  Broadly one can think of such interoperability in two functions – communications and transactions or value flows across chains.  Both are essential to eliminate fragmentation of the larger ecosystem among specific blockchain communities and initiatives.

 

Wormhole is a protocol launched in August of 2021 and incubated by Jump Crypto (the crypto arm of high-frequency trading firm Jump Trading) that, according to its press release, has won the trust of leading firms such as Circle and Uniswap, and facilitated over $35 billion in value transfer and regularly processes 2+ million daily messages across more than 30 chains. 

 

This past week Wormhole built on its success with an impressive $225 million capital raise in exchange for a token warrant and at a $2.5 billion valuation.  The deal is the largest single capital round so far this year, with the third-largest valuation for 2023.  The round received diverse support, including Brevan Howard, Coinbase Ventures, Multicoin Capital, Jump Trading, ParaFi, Dialectic, Borderless Capital, and Arrington Capital. It also deployed an interesting structure for a deal of this size, offering token warrants instead of traditional equity stakes, more typical of smaller and earlier-stage projects in the Web3 space. Proceeds will be used to onboard additional employees, build out and develop the protocol, promote cross-chain activity and encourage developers to build on top of the protocol’s messaging technology.

 

There are several intriguing aspects here. It is the first external funding round after being incubated by Jump Crypto. The team concurrently launched Wormhole Labs to complete its spinout from Jump and provide product development and implementation capabilities. Purportedly the round did not have a “lead”, and achieved more equal and collaborative support among its investors.  And of course, this is another example of teams building critical market infrastructure receiving solid investor support.

 

Relatively few companies have raised this year at valuations north of $1 billion. Coming on the heels of the largest total capital raised last week, Wormhole’s impressive financing round certainly has the hallmark of growing momentum for the sector.