Dechert’s clients continue to reinvent the financial services landscape, with the U.S. West Coast increasingly a global hub for applying cutting-edge technology to financial services. California-based firms continue to be trend-setters and market-leaders when it comes to the blockchain economy, and Dechert’s unique offerings and expertise in the region allows us to assist a wide-range of clients, from early-stage crypto-native companies to established financial services firms.
A recent highlight was advising Long Beach, California-based tech creator iTrustCapital Inc., which secured a US$125 million Series A equity raise for its Crypto IRA software platform, with a post-funding valuation over US$1.3 billion. The world’s largest platform for buying and selling cryptocurrencies through individual retirement accounts, the company has grown from US$2 billion in total transaction volume to US$4.5 billion within in the last six months. Dechert has advised iTrust since its inception on a variety of tax and regulatory issues related to their highly innovative product offerings.
This is not the only ground-breaking transaction that Dechert’s 28-partner fintech team has advised on in recent months, with its work winning a Financial Times’ Innovative Lawyers Awards for North America 2021 for advising California-based Franklin Templeton on the development of the world’s first blockchain-based mutual fund, in addition to advising ARK Invest on a ground-breaking private Bitcoin fund and Equity Shift on its interactions with U.S. regulators concerning its new digital platform that facilitates primary offerings and secondary transactions. In the last 12 months Dechert has also supported private equity players such as GIC, Nordic Capital and JP Morgan Chase on their significant strategic fintech investments.
