Crypto finance firm Circle has inked a definitive agreement to acquire New York-headquartered SeedInvest, a crowdfunding platform and SEC and FINRA registered broker/dealer. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

“This acquisition will accelerate our strategy of delivering a token marketplace that enables businesses and individuals to raise capital and interact with investors using open crypto rails and infrastructure. This acquisition and planned new offerings are subject to FINRA approval,” say Circle co-founders Sean Neville and Jeremy Allaire in a blog post.

We’ve got vision

“Circle’s vision is one of an open, global and connected digital economy built on crypto assets and blockchain infrastructure. A critical element of realising this vision is building new ways for businesses, and ultimately individuals, to use crypto assets to more efficiently raise capital, manage investors and provide liquidity. Furthermore, Circle aims to continue to raise the bar for the crypto industry by embracing securities regulation as it applies to crypto and paving the way for security tokens,” the blog post continues.

Executing on this vision requires legally compliant ways to use crypto assets and tokens to raise capital as well as end-to-end services that can help startups and growth companies of all sizes to register, issue, and distribute these tokenised assets to individual and institutional investors.

The acquisition will enable companies to efficiently raise capital through a regulated platform, tap into diversified retail investor portfolios through Circle Invest and provide investors with secondary market liquidity on Circle’s digital asset exchange Neville and Allaire state.

“The SeedInvest product includes many of the end-to-end capabilities needed for executing regulated crowdfunding, including startup due diligence, securities issuance, investor accreditation, payments and securities custody, as well as a broad range of innovative tools for startups to market their crowdfunding offerings online in a compliant fashion.”

“With the merger and approval from key regulators, these capabilities will be expanded to support crypto-denominated investments including using fiat stablecoins such as USDC, as well as issuing and offering tokenised securities,” the blog post continues.