Spiko raises $90m to put Europe's idle corporate cash on chain
NEA leads a Series B for the Paris and London issuer of tokenised money market funds, whose assets have grown more than fivefold in a year to $2.7bn.
Spiko, a Paris and London company that issues regulated money market funds as tokens on public blockchains, said on Tuesday, October 6, that it has raised $90 million in a Series B round led by New Enterprise Associates. Index Ventures, Bpifrance, Speedinvest, Flourish Ventures, Shapers, White Star Capital, Blockwall, Frst, EQNX, Mirana Ventures and Wintermute Ventures also took part, alongside angel investors including Axel Weber, the former president of the Bundesbank, and the founders of the French business bank Qonto. The round brings Spiko's total funding to $120 million. The company did not disclose a valuation; Börsen-Zeitung, citing Bloomberg, put it at about $800 million.
The figure that matters more than the round is the balance sheet behind it. Spiko says it now manages $2.7 billion across funds in euros, dollars, sterling and Swiss francs, more than five times what it held a year ago, for over 10,000 businesses and individuals in more than 25 jurisdictions. That makes it one of the clearest tests yet of whether tokenisation can win real treasury money in Europe, rather than crypto balances looking for a place to park.
A small company in a very large pool
Spiko's pitch rests on a simple observation. Large companies and banks earn wholesale market rates on their spare cash every day, while smaller firms, charities, research bodies and many financial institutions leave money in current accounts that pay little or nothing. The company estimates that about $50 trillion sits in cash and deposits across Europe and the United States, and that each percentage point of yield on that sum is worth roughly $500 billion a year. With rates of around 2.5% in the euro area and close to 4% in the United States, the gap is not trivial for a business holding a few million in reserve.
Money market funds are the traditional answer, but outside America they have never become a mass product for small and mid-sized companies. Spiko's growth suggests the demand was there and the distribution was not. When it raised a $22 million Series A led by Index Ventures in July 2025, it reported more than $400 million under management. Tech Funding News, citing figures from the Investment Company Institute, notes that global money market fund assets stood at $13.72 trillion at the end of the second quarter of 2026. On that measure Spiko holds around 0.02% of the market. The upside, in other words, is a question of reach rather than of product.
What the tokens actually change
Spiko is careful to present itself as a regulated fund business rather than a crypto venture. Its funds are UCITS money market funds, and its operating company is licensed as an investment firm by France's Prudential Control and Resolution Authority, according to its website as reported by The Next Web. Client assets are held by CACEIS Bank, part of the Crédit Agricole group, which in October 2024 became custodian for the first French UCITS money market funds whose units are issued natively on the public Ethereum blockchain.
The blockchain element is less about novelty than about plumbing. Because fund units live on chain, Spiko already offers instant withdrawals on some euro funds, including at weekends, and says that yield accruing every hour is on its way. A finance team can set rules once: keep enough in the operating account for payroll and suppliers, sweep the remainder into an instantly redeemable fund, and move cash that will not be needed for a quarter into a fixed-term product. Those rules can be changed through an application programming interface by a company's treasury system or by software acting on its behalf. Partner platforms embed the funds in their own products through the same interface, so part of its client base holds the funds without ever opening Spiko's own app.
Spiko also claims, citing data from RWA.xyz, to have overtaken BlackRock and Franklin Templeton as the largest issuer of tokenised cash funds. Readers should treat that ranking as a company statement about a narrow category; in the broader money market industry, the incumbents remain far larger.
Who wrote the cheques
The investor list says something about where the product sits. NEA, a generalist American venture firm, led the round, and its head of Europe, Philip Chopin, argued that Spiko had solved the regulatory and product problems together, which competitors had tackled only in part. Bpifrance, the French public investment bank, returned from the Series A. Market makers and crypto investors such as Wintermute Ventures and Mirana Ventures sit alongside traditional fintech funds. Börsen-Zeitung reports that existing backers had the option to invest pro rata and that Revolut co-founder Nik Storonsky, among others, used it.
The presence of Mr Weber is notable. A former central banker lending his name to a tokenised fund issuer is a signal aimed at cautious corporate treasurers and supervisors as much as at other investors.
The plan and the risks
Spiko says the money will fund new products, entry into new markets and a larger team. Beyond its London and Paris offices, it is building local teams in Germany, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands and the Nordic countries. Each of those markets has its own banking habits, and in several of them corporate deposits are tied to long lending relationships that a fund provider cannot easily replace.
Three risks stand out. First, the business depends on interest rates: the case for moving cash out of deposits weakens sharply if central banks cut towards zero, as European companies learned in the last decade. Second, distribution through partner platforms brings growth but also concentration, since a handful of large integrations can account for a large share of assets. Third, banks will not sit still. Deposit pricing, sweep accounts and their own tokenised deposit projects are all ways for lenders to defend balances that Spiko wants to win.
Our view
Spiko is one of the more convincing tokenisation stories in Europe precisely because it is not selling tokenisation. It is selling a money market fund to companies that have never used one, with blockchain rails doing the unglamorous work of faster settlement and programmable cash rules. Assets of $2.7 billion, up more than fivefold in a year, show that the proposition resonates with startups, scale-ups and public bodies, and the reported valuation of about $800 million prices in a good deal of further growth.
For founders, the lesson is that regulated wrappers and boring products can travel faster on new infrastructure than speculative assets ever did. For investors, the test is whether growth survives lower rates and tougher competition from banks. What to watch: asset growth in Germany and Italy, the share of assets arriving through partner platforms, the launch of hourly yield accrual, and whether rival fund managers respond with their own tokenised share classes aimed at smaller companies.
Sources
- The Next Web: Spiko raises a $90M Series B led by NEA for its tokenised cash funds
- FinTech Global: Spiko raises $90m Series B to make cash earn by default
- Börsen-Zeitung: Französisches Fintech Spiko sammelt 90 Mill. Dollar ein
- Tech Funding News: Ex-French Treasury official raises $90M led by NEA to turn idle cash into yield-bearing assets
- crypto.news: Spiko raises $90M as its tokenized funds hit $2.7B
- Cryptoast: La start-up française Spiko lève 90 millions de dollars en série B
- Spiko: Spiko raises $22M Series A led by Index Ventures
- Spiko: CACEIS ouvre les fonds monétaires Spiko à ses clients
Filed under Fintech. Written by Invest Times Editorial under our editorial standards. Commentary and analysis for information only, not investment advice.
