GMO Financial Holdings Buy 10% of Crypto Hedge Fund AWR Capital for Undisclosed Amount

GMO Financial Holdings, an investor in crypto and foreign exchange margin trading businesses, bought a 10% stake in AWR Capital, a multistrategy crypto hedge fund, according to a statement shared with CoinDesk on Monday. The price paid by the Japan-based firm wasn't disclosed.

AWR, which is based in London, will become a market maker at one of Japan's largest FX and digital assets exchanges, GMO Coin, a subsidiary of GMO Financial Holdings, AWR said. Market makers are entities tasked with providing liquidity on an exchange by creating buy and sell orders.

"Our investment will allow AWR to build out its services and solutions to span multiple asset classes and strategies," Tomitaka Ishimura, COO at GMO Financial Holdings, said in the statement.

Last year, GMO Coin ranked ninth on Forbes Digital Assets' list of the world's largest crypto exchanges, rated according to several criteria, including regulatory compliance, cyber-security provisions and trade fees.

AWR also said it appointed algorithmic trading veteran and former group CEO of crypto market-maker B2C2 Phillip Gillespie as managing partner to lead business development strategy and scale the fund's operations.

Gillespie's "systematic trading expertise and extensive industry network will be of immense value to our firm as we build out multi-asset financial services offering," Dave Askey, managing partner and founder of AWR Capital, said.