Trading, execution and clearing services group Openmarkets has hit the pavementfor up to $US50 million ($77 million) to fund its decentralised finance strategy and push into key markets across Asia and the United States.
Openmarkets, which is 100 percent owned by Melbourne fund manager Boman Group (formerly BMYG Financial Group), is seeking to get ahead of the accelerating global DeFi trend by building an ecosystem to manage the tokenisation of real-world assets like private equity and real estate, and digital asset treasury in cryptocurrency. Openmarkets also wants to have its own stablecoin one day.
Street Talk can reveal Openmarkets’ executives embarked on a non-deal roadshow earlier this year, meeting with family offices and private wealth investors in Asia. Meetings with institutional investors in the United States and Asia are scheduled for later this year.
While Australian investors are in the mix, Openmarkets is focusing its attention offshore to places such as Singapore and Hong Kong where there’s greater certainty and established frameworks around the use of DeFi and its interaction with traditional financial services.
Openmarkets has inked a memorandum of understanding with Layer 1 blockchain provider, Redbelly Network, to develop tokenised products. This refers to the base layer of blockchain architecture.
Openmarkets has historically offered wholesale share clearing and retail trading platforms. Former Shaw and Partners chief operating officer Dan Jowett took over as chief executive in 2022 after the shock resignation of Ivan Tchourilov – nine months after OMG had to pull a planned sharemarket float. The business was formed in late 2019, and Boman took control three years later.
Sarah Thompson has co-edited Street Talk since 2009, specialising in private equity, investment banking, M&A and equity capital markets stories. Prior to that, she spent 10 years in London as a markets and M&A reporter at Bloomberg and Dow Jones. Email Sarah at sarah.thompson@afr.com
Kanika Sood is a journalist based in Sydney who writes for the Street Talk column. Email Kanika at kanika.sood@afr.com.au
Emma Rapaport is a co-editor of the Street Talk column. Prior to that, she was a markets reporter at The Australian Financial Review. Connect with Emma on Twitter. Email Emma at emma.rapaport@afr.com.