SC Ventures, the venture capital arm of Standard Chartered Bank (STAN), has invested in GSR, as the London-based multinational bank seeks to further expand its digital asset services, the crypto capital markets firm announced on Tuesday.
According to Bloomberg, the investment agreement is worth $150 million and is valued at more than $1 billion. It is the first outside equity stake since the cryptocurrency capital markets and liquidity partnership was founded by a former Goldman Sachs trader in 2013.
GSR and SC Ventures did not immediately respond to CoinDesk’s request for comment.
GSR said in a statement that the deal is part of a broader partnership aimed at connecting traditional finance and digital assets and expanding tokenization opportunities.
Xin Son, CEO of GSR, said: “The institutional digital asset market is maturing rapidly, and the companies most likely to lead will be those that combine deep capital markets expertise with trusted banking infrastructure.”
In light of increasing institutional demand for regulated crypto services, SC Ventures and GSR plan to develop a scalable market infrastructure.
Alex Manson, CEO of SC Ventures, said: “The next stage of digital asset development will be determined by the strength of the infrastructure.”
Standard Chartered has recently made financial investments aimed at expanding its digital asset footprint. It launched its own digital asset custody service in Luxembourg in January 2025 and launched cryptocurrency trading for institutional clients last summer, becoming one of the first banks in the world to offer spot trading of Bitcoin and Ethereum. Standard Chartered Bank was recently reported to be looking to fully acquire Zodia Custody Ltd.
In March of this year, GSR claimed to have more than 300 liquidity partners and more than $1 trillion in transaction volume since its inception, and announced the acquisition of Autonomous and Architech for $57 million, a move aimed at significantly expanding the company’s tokenization services unit.