Xalts raises $6 million from Accel, Citi Ventures

Xalts, an investment management and technology firm, has raised US $6 million from Silicon Valley venture capital firm Accel, Citi Ventures and crypto founders such as Polygon co-founder Sandeep Nailwal.

Ashutosh Goel, a former trader at HSBC, and Supreet Kaur, a former executive at Meta Asia, got together to start xalts, a company whose goal is to get real-money institutions to take part in the digital asset ecosystem.

Xalts is planning to launch a number of digital asset-related fund products, such as mutual funds and ETFs that will be traded on several global exchanges.


"What came to the forefront this past summer in several large crypto firms was a lack of basic controls, checks and balances that most of us take for granted in the financial industry. With xalts, we are building innovative, institutional-grade investment products and solutions that focus on high compliance and control standards—things institutional investors care about," said Goel, Chief Investment Officer, xalts.

Xalts is also developing several other products in collaboration with other players in the ecosystem, including a structured product and repackaging platform which will allow institutions to issue structured notes with embedded crypto options.

"There is a lot of pent-up demand from institutional investors to participate in the digital asset class. However, a lot of institutions we are speaking with are not able to access this ecosystem directly. Our products and solutions bridge this gap without compromising the high standards of safety and compliance expected by institutional investors," said Kaur, Chief Operating Officer, xalts.

Luis Valdich, Managing Director, Citi Ventures said: "xalts is our first investment in a digital asset manager, and we support its vision of creating innovative products to meet the growing appetite of institutional investors for more efficient and robust crypto-access investments."

"Our thesis is that institutional adoption of digital assets will continue to accelerate, and we see a big opportunity in this space," added Abhinav Chaturvedi, Partner, Accel.