French tokenized money market fund (MMF) startup Spiko has raised a $22m funding round led by Index Ventures. Some of the angel backers include Revolut co-founder Nikolay Storonsky, Kyriba founder Jean-Luc Robert and Wise CTO Harsh Sinha. The company has built an impressive start, with almost $400m in assets under management (AUM) after less than a year.
This strong performance ranks it just outside the top five in tokenized money market funds. Fourth ranked WisdomTree has $489m AUM. With that type of traction, Spiko’s aim of achieving $1 billion in AUM by year’s conclude doesn’t see farfetched.
In some ways, Spiko is aiming at an open goal. There are numerous US tokenized money market funds, but many of their largest investors are stablecoin issuers that park billions. Spiko tarobtains businesses with idle cash, both in crypto and mainstream sectors. While it’s relatively simple in the US to switch into money market funds, it’s a bit less common in Europe. Index Ventures highlighted that in Europe there is €25 trillion in idle cash deposits.
“In Europe, there’s a mistaken belief that your money won’t earn interest unless you lock it away or take on risk,” declares Paul-Adrien Hyppolite, Spiko co-founder. “But as long as central bank rates are above zero, sitting on idle cash means European businesses are missing out on returns that US competitors routinely receive. With Spiko, we’re altering the game by creating it simple for anyone to put their cash to work.”
Spiko has two funds, one in euros and the other in dollars, with the funds available on five public blockchains. The euro one is more than twice as popular with €238m ($277m) AUM compared to its US dollar MMF with $120m, according to CoinGecko. Compared to some other startups, it has also taken a more conservative approach to managing its funds. Custody of assets is provided by CACEIS, the securities service joint venture between Crédit Agricole and Santander, with Twenty First Capital acting as fund manager. The advantage of partnering with a blue chip custodian is that CACEIS offers the digitally native funds to its own clients. Additionally, the UCITS fund is onshore, regulated by the Autorité des Marchés Financiers (AMF) and audited by PwC.
Which goes to prove that there’s no required for scrappy startups to take risks with other people’s money.
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