And as digital assets scale beyond crypto into broad-based tokenized assets trapped by institutions are demanding more robust as well as regulated data infrastructure to manage risk and also execute trades today massive consolidation in that space.
Tico announcing its acquisition of Amber Data, creating a global independent as well as regulated data and analytics company for the digital asset industry.
Combined, they now serve over 250 major institutional.
Across three continents as well as covering more than 12,000 digital assets 24/7 and joining us now to discuss this landmark deal and what it means for the future of institutional finance is Ambre Soubiran, the CEO of Kaiko. good morning.
Thank you so much for joining us.
Well you just announced the acquisition of Amber data.
So tell me about the strategic move and why this specific deal is essential to unlock mass institutional adoption.
Absolutely and thank you so much Remi for for having me on.
It's a very uh very special day today.
I think it marks um one of the most significant consolidation in the data space as far as digital assets and blockchain are concerned, and I think it's really important specifically in the context of the expansion of digital assets from crypto to a broader tokenized um assets and and real world assets on the blockchain.
What we're doing here with this acquisition is really consolidating the data and analytics side of that data industry.
The other two main pillars of CICO's business are 24/7 indices initially designed for crypto and now increasingly catering for non-crypto assets, as well as data infrastructure, and the combination of data and analytics regulated 24/7 indices, and now data infrastructure. is essentially the distribution rail for data to be brought on chain is extremely powerful and today CICO is the only global independent company that offers a pure play in the world of data solutions and data infrastructure solutions for digital assets as they outgrow crypto and enter the world of real world tokenized assets.
And as you mentioned, Amberda does bring a blue chip client base that relies on derivatives analytics as well as on chain data and market intelligence, in particular AI.
So how does integrating these specific capabilities enhance your ability to serve major hedge funds as well as asset managers?
It's very interesting and you're absolutely right.
CICO historically has focused more on financial institutions, data companies, market infrastructure companies, regulators, research, um, focusing on digital assets, obviously, whereas Emberdata has been extremely strong in selling to the more highly active investors in crypto assets, and you mentioned market makers, traders, hedge funds, and so this comes in.
As an extremely synergetic deal, CICO serves about 200 clients globally.
Amberdata roughly 60, with barely any overlap in our clients that we serve. and the focus on er data on these types of more active crypto investors is also due to the nature of their product offering, which is very, very strong in analytics and derivatives data.
Um, something that we also offer, uh, but that Amber data is offering is going to come strengthened significantly and, and so a big part of the integration of the two companies is really merging the two offerings and creating this um market leading.
Data and analytics offering which involves everything from tick by tick real-time trades for any kind of spot or derivatives instrument traded anywhere globally.
We have all tick history for any crypto trade that happened since Munt Gox in 2010.
All the way to very sophisticated analytics, IV implied volatility surfaces, risk models, liquidity models, market depth, all of these data products that are essentially a derivative of The raw market data offering, so the er data really comes in to bring on a part of the addressable market that we're absolutely delighted to welcome on as clients of CICO and really strengthen this analytics side of of the offering.
And on the heels of today's acquisition announcement, CICO is now positioned as the only independent as well as regulated data indices and infra company in the sector.
So we all know that traditional finance gets more heavily involved.
How critical is your regulatory standing in winning as well as keeping institutional trust?
I, I really think that the independent nature of CICO is very important.
Uh, we are obviously not the only company offering data and analytics.
Uh, however, we're the only one that is fully independent as well as fully regulated.
So, um, CICO is operating, for example, it's 24/7 index franchise under the benchmark regulation rule BMR.
We operate.
Under the IOSCO principle, we are SOC 1 and SOC 2 type 2 audited, and we recently acquired a couple of weeks ago a MICA regulated DeFi engineering company called Comet in the purpose of building data infrastructure solutions that are operating under regulatory rules of how we transfer financial assets on the blockchain.
And that nature, I think it's pretty unique that we are a pure player in the world of data for digital assets that includes data for crypto as an asset class but also data solutions for blockchain as an infrastructure network.
This latter part is especially relevant in the context of tokenized markets and traditional financial applications being deployed. on blockchain infrastructure where the distribution play of real-time financial market data is going to be extremely critical and that distribution has to be done in a framework that offers comfort to the data owners.
We announced earlier this year a couple of data partnerships, one of them with Bloomberg to distribute their data on the Canton network.
Same thing.
With S&P, were announced the tokenization of their iBox US Treasury benchmark.
In order for us to offer comfort to data owners on their data distribution on a blockchain network, we need to be able to offer the reassurance that only an independent global and regulated entity can offer, and this is very unique within the digital assets data landscape today.
Well, Andre, congratulations on the announcement this morning.
It was great talking to you.
Thank you so much for sharing the news with us.
I appreciate all of your time as well as your perspective.
Thank you so much, Jaime.
