Thailand’s XSpring Capital raises $225M to build integrated financial marketplace

Published at: June 17, 2021

Investment management company XSpring Capital has secured a large funding round with partners in Thailand to accelerate the development of its financial marketplace that combines traditional and digital asset products.

It also hopes to bring an expanded platform to the United States.

According to an announcement, the $225 million has been raised through a partnership with Thai real estate firm Sansiri, local insurance company Viryah, and Thai private investor and multi-millionaire Mongkol Prakitchaiwattana.

Formerly known as Seamico Securities, XSpring Capital (not to be confused with Ripple’s Xpring project incubator), has a wide variety of trading licenses enabling it to operate across the traditional and digital finance markets.

The firm, which touts itself as an emerging leader in Asia's digital investment marketplace, provides financial and investment services including securities brokerage, investment advisory, and underwriting to clients in Thailand and Southeast Asia.

XSpring Capital is a portfolio asset of United States-based asset management firm Elevated Returns. The company specializes in digitizing traditional financial assets using blockchain technology. Founder and President of Elevated Returns, Stephane De Baets, commented about the possibility of developing a similar platform in the U.S.

“Through XSpring’s tremendous success in Thailand, we now have proof of concept that public desire for this type of platform is even stronger than expected; currently, we are working to obtain the necessary licenses to begin similar operations in the United States.”

In October 2020, crypto trading firm BlockFi signed an agreement with Elevated Returns to provide lending facilities against digital assets issued within the Elevated Returns group of companies.

Elevated Returns is the manager of Aspen Digital, a corporation formed with the purpose of indirectly owning a portion of the St. Regis Aspen Resort through tokenization.

The Thai government has made several moves in recent months to limit crypto trading activities for retail traders, such as imposing a strict “in-person” KYC procedure for those wanting to open a crypto trading account.

Earlier this month, Cointelegraph reported that Thailand’s Securities and Exchange Commission targeted DeFi in its latest clampdown, announcing that any related activities may require a license from the financial regulator.