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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 September 25 – October 1

J. Todd White
October 4, 2023
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17 Crypto Private Financings Raised ~$92M

17 Crypto Private Financings Raised ~$92M

 

Rolling 3-Month-Average: $145M

 

Rolling 52-Week Average: $188M

Private financings continue their subdued pace, with both deal count and capital raised trending down this week from already muted volumes. Seven of our top 10 transactions were infrastructure deals, with half in early-stage investing and trading, showing continued investor appetite to build the plumbing during an extended sector down-cycle.

 

Selected Highlights 

 

SupraOracle announced a total of $24M in private investments completed, including support from some of the largest digital asset investors such as Animoca Brands, Coinbase Ventures and Valor Equity Partners. Supra is a developer of low-latency infrastructure for cross-chain interoperability and security to enable migration of Web2 to Web3 with powerful oracles, cross-chain communication protocols and consensus mechanisms

 

Why Notable?   Supra is building the critical interoperability infrastructure that is essential for the adoption and scaling of Web 3 initiatives. The large number of high-profile strategic investors providing private financing, co-developing white papers and collaborative R&D suggest that Supra’s “academic approach” to cross-chain oracles and bridgeless communication is resonating with key market players.

 

Rated Labs secured a $12.9M Series A round led by crypto venture investor Archetype, who also took a board seat. The UK-based oracle and dataset provider, which currently offers Ethereum-based node and node-operator ratings, data pipelines and comprehensive datasets, will use the new funds to extend into Layer 2 networks and additional blockchains including Polygon, Cosmos and Solana.

 

Why Notable? As we have seen in several infrastructure deals, simplifying access to Web3 continues to attract capital. This round is also notable for the sizeable participation from previous investors such as Placeholder, Cherry and Semantic who are showing continued financial support.

 

AnchorWatch secured $3M in funding led by Ten31 in order to meet the regulatory and capital requirements necessary to bring to market a regulated insurance product embedded in its secure custody vault, Trident Vault. The solution is an example of combined technical and financial infrastructure to meet the needs of commercial institutions as well as financial advisors with clients seeking secure and insured custody for Bitcoin.

 

Why Notable? We view appropriately scoped insurance solutions to be essential financial infrastructure for the Web3 and digital assets space in general.  While not yet offering products in the market, AnchorWatch was formed to specifically fill a void identified by the founders, in this case commercial coverage for cold-storage Bitcoin. Investor support for their approach – combining secure technology with credentialed insurance – is encouraging as the broad insurance needs of the sector continue to be underserved.

 

Patterns  

Infrastructure continues to dominate the private financing landscape, with cross-chain interoperability being a recurring theme. And we expect the often overlooked financial infrastructure – notably the underserved insurance and risk management needs of the sector – to attract increased investor interest as digital markets mature.