Swiss blockchain firm Obligate closes Seed extension funding to accelerate regulated DeFi: Know more

Zurich-based Obligate (previously FQX), a blockchain-based debt infrastructure provider, announced on Thursday that it has closed a Seed extension funding round, bringing the total capital raised to $8.5M (approximately €7.8M). 

Blockchange Ventures and Circle Ventures, as well as initial seed co-investors Earlybird and SIX Fintech Ventures, participated in the round.

Benedikt Schuppli, Obligate’s Co-Founder and CEO, says, “This backing from leading TradFi and Web3 institutions proves the value of applying blockchain technology to traditional financial instruments. This investment enables us to build a more accessible and efficient financial system where borrowers and investors are directly connected.”

Obligate: What you need to know

Founded by Dr. Stephan Meyer, Dr. Philipp von Randow, and Benedikt Schuppli, Obligate combines deep legal and tech know-how with financial expertise to help build a new blockchain-based financial system. 

Dr. Stephan Meyer, Co-Founder and Chief Legal Officer at Obligate, says, “Obligate is an all-in-one bond and commercial paper platform, powered by full automation of the transaction life cycles and a public blockchain. We make bond issuances simple, flexible, and cost-efficient atop a solid legal and regulatory foundation.”

Through a regulated approach, the Swiss platform offers a decentralised platform for on-chain financing using bonds and commercial paper. 

The company says it comes at a fraction of the cost and time of traditional offerings but with the same regulatory certainty. Investors get access to a wide range of regulated digital debt assets, which can be secured with on-chain collateral. 

Obligate’s platform helps reduce the time and costs associated with bond issuance by 80 per cent since it leverages smart contracts and tokenisation instead of intermediaries such as paying and issuer agents. 

Building on its existing blockchain-based debt infrastructure, Obligate will launch its blockchain-based platform in Q1 2023 and enable end-to-end corporate debt funding in a decentralised and regulated environment.

“Like the internet before it, we expect the blockchain will underpin some of the largest businesses out there, including in finance,” says Ken Seiff, Managing Partner at Blockchange Ventures. “Obligate’s vision of using the efficiency and speed of Blockchain embedded in a structure that still supports the core needs and requirements of existing debt markets is powerful. It takes a team with this combination of background and depth of experience to make this happen.”