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Ending the technical obsolescence of financial infrastructure
The first fintech revolution significantly improved the accessibility and quality of financial services. However, fintechs have primarily focused on user interfaces and experiences while still relying on the outdated infrastructure of the financial system. These traditional systems have failed to keep up with the technological advances of recent decades, meaning basic services like bank transfers, card payments, or securities transfers still take days to settle, are not available continuously, and often require manual intervention.
A second fintech revolution is set to define the upcoming decade: the revolution of financial infrastructure. The tokenization of financial instruments will disrupt the roles of registry-keeping, clearing, and asset custody by enabling financial services to operate on open, interoperable infrastructures that are operational 24/7.
In this context, Spiko is raising €4 million to develop a next-generation platform for issuing, managing, and distributing tokenized financial instruments.
“Spiko was born out of the desire to accelerate the adoption of blockchain networks in financial services. Our mission is to transform the infrastructure of financial markets by enabling the issuance of securities (stocks, bonds, fund shares) on databases far more powerful than those currently used by central securities depositories and custodians,” said Paul-Adrien Hyppolite, Co-Founder and CEO of Spiko.
Democratizing access to risk-free rates with the first tokenized Money Market Funds
In today’s interest rate environment, SMEs, startups, and individuals lack satisfactory options to grow their cash at risk-free rates for several reasons. First, banks prefer to profit from their clients' deposits rather than passing on the risk-free rate they access from the central bank. Second, when clients request yield products, these institutions are not incentivized to offer money market funds, which provide lower returns than term accounts. Finally, when these funds are offered at clients' requests, access is typically restricted to high minimum investment amounts, often in the hundreds of thousands or even millions of euros.
To address this, Spiko is launching two tokenized money market funds:
- Spiko EU T-Bills Money Market Fund (Bloomberg ticker: SPKEUMM), which invests in Treasury Bills issued by the most stable Eurozone countries,
- Spiko US T-Bills Money Market Fund (Bloomberg ticker: SPKUSMM), which invests in U.S. Treasury Bills.
These are the first UCITS funds in the EU with a fully tokenized registry. The shares of Spiko funds are transferable 24/7 between investors.
With this offering, Spiko aims to revolutionize cash management by democratizing access to risk-free rates. Spiko funds are available to individuals and businesses through the Spiko app, with a minimum investment of 1,000 EUR or USD, as well as via APIs provided by Spiko. Investors can make as many deposits and withdrawals as they wish, without notice, fees, or penalties. These products are designed to preserve capital, offer daily liquidity, and generate daily interest corresponding to the risk-free rate.
Spiko funds are managed by Twenty First Capital, with CACEIS (a subsidiary of Crédit Agricole) as the custodian bank, and will be audited by PwC as the statutory auditor. The law firm Gide Loyrette Nouel assisted Spiko in its fundraising and in the legal structuring of the tokenized funds.
About Spiko
Spiko was founded in 2023 by Paul-Adrien Hyppolite and Antoine Michon, two former senior civil servants from ENS/X-Mines who worked in financial regulation and digital transformation. The French fintech develops a platform for issuing, managing, and distributing tokenized financial instruments. The first products available on the Spiko platform are EUR and USD-denominated money market funds, with fully tokenized registries. These funds, approved and supervised by the AMF, are designed to offer an optimal cash management solution for businesses and individuals.
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