Today Nomura announced it invested in Crypto Garage, a subsidiary of Tokyo listed Digital Garage. In terms of business strategy, the investment will be used to develop a crypto-asset business and the two firms will work together on custody. Komainu, the Jersey digital asset custody firm co-founded by Nomura, is partnering with Crypto Garage to provide custody solutions in Japan.
“We are excited to enter into this agreement with Crypto Garage to explore bringing our institutional-grade custody services to an underserved market in Japan,” said Henson Orser, Komainu‘s President and Acting CEO.
Crypto Garage provides crypto-asset services, including SETTLENET, a platform that enables delivery versus payment settlement for tokenized assets. The solution uses the Liquid Network sidechain of Bitcoin and recently partnered with Daiwa Securities, which issued a tokenized bond as a proof of concept.
Additionally, in June, Crypto Garage received a license to operate as a crypto-asset exchange service provider, including brokerage services between Japanese crypto-asset exchanges and liquidity providers. Nomura said the companies would work together to help the Crypto Garage platform support institutional investors.
Crypto Garage will remain a subsidiary of Digital Garage, which previously invested in blockchain security firm QuantStamp alongside Nomura. Another past investment by Digital Garage Labs was in crypto custody firm Curv that PayPal acquired.
Meanwhile, Nomura founded BOOSTRY, which is also developing a tokenized bond platform.