Japanese Banking Giant Nomura to Launch Crypto-Focused Venture Capital Arm – Nomura Holdings, a Japanese investment banking giant, is entering the world of crypto assets, and the new company will unveil a host of “new services and product lines” in the coming months. Nomura is one of Japan’s largest investment banks and one of the country’s oldest. The investing firm Nomura Securities was founded 97 years ago in Osaka in 1925.
The new Laser Digital Holdings is a Swiss-incorporated holding company with the goal of establishing three vertical product offerings: secondary trading, venture capital, and investor products. The new firm will be overseen by Jez Mohideen as CEO and Steven Ashley as chairman of Laser Digital. According to Nomura’s press release, Switzerland was chosen because of the country’s established and robust regulatory environment.
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“Staying at the forefront of digital innovation is a key priority for Nomura,” said Kentaro Okuda, president and CEO of the investment bank, on Wednesday. “This is why, alongside our efforts to diversify our business, we announced earlier this year that Nomura would be setting up a new subsidiary focused on digital assets.”
Nomura’s latest offering comes on the heels of Nasdaq’s announcement of a new crypto custody partnership on Tuesday. In addition, prior to the announcements by Nomura and Nasdaq, Fidelity Digital Assets, Citadel Securities, and Charles Schwab Corp.
launched a collaborative effort with ambitions to build a crypto exchange that will serve both retail and institutional clients. The three financial firms have christened the exchange EDX Markets (EDXM), and former Citadel Securities executive Jamil Nazarali has been named CEO.
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On Wednesday, Japanese financial giant Nomura said that Laser Digital’s first offering will be a venture capital (VC) business dubbed Laser Venture Capital. The press release concludes, “The new unit will invest in companies in the digital ecosystem, with a focus on decentralized finance (defi), centralized finance (cefi), Web3, and blockchain infrastructure.”
