Kraken Digital Asset Exchange, a US-based cryptocurrency service provider, has set up a corporate venturing unit.
Kraken Ventures will target early-stage companies and protocols across the crypto and financial technology ecosystem, including decentralized finance (DeFi), as well as enabling technologies, such as artificial intelligence, regulation tech and cybersecurity.
Brandon Gath, previously head of corporate development at Kraken, has been made general partner of Kraken Ventures. Before joining Kraken, Gath was previously at CME Ventures, the corporate venturing unit of exchanges provider CME that had backed Orbital Insight, Crosslend, Digital Currency Group, Nervana Systems, Crypto Facilities, Privitar and Fortscale before being shuttered.
Gath said: “Fintech and specifically crypto technology provides the opportunity to drastically change how businesses and consumers exchange and store value, invest, lend, borrow, and conduct global commerce.”
He is joined by Kirill Gourov, who previously managed blockchain investments for an undisclosed multifamily office, and Akshi Federici.
Kraken’s exchanges is used by more than five million traders, institutions and authorities and the company is backed by Digital Currency Group and venture capital firms Hummingbird Ventures and Blockchain Capital.
