DeFi Technologies has entered into a letter of intent (LOI) to acquire 100 per cent of the issued and outstanding securities of Protos Asset Management (Protos).
Protos, through its various funds and investment structures, gives investors exposure to professionally managed portfolios of cryptocurrency assets and DeFi networks. The founders have 18 combined years of investing in bitcoin and cryptocurrencies.
Protos Quant accounts aim to systematically reduce risk while growing the size of its clients portfolios relative to their BTC & ETH benchmarks.
In 2017, Protos raised the first tokenised quantitative crypto fund, issuing the PRTS token (one of the first security tokens).
The LOI contemplates that DeFi Technologies and Protos will promptly negotiate and enter into a definitive agreement (Definitive Agreement), together with such other documents that may be required in order to formalise and execute the terms of the Acquisition as outlined in the LOI.
Wouter Witvoet, DeFi Technologies Chief Executive Officer, says: “Since 2017, the team at Protos have created excellent infrastructure to give institutional and individual investors access to a diversified DeFi portfolio. They were also pioneers in allowing investors to access their quantitative investment strategies via the PRTS security token. It is these kinds of developments that I am excited to bring to the DeFi Technologies family and get to real scale using the platform we have created.”
Russell Starr, DeFi Technologies Executive Chairman, says: “The acquisition of Protos paired with our planned acquisition of DeFi Yield and our current Valour ETP business creates an ideal symbiotic product offering for investors looking to get diversified exposure to the DeFi universe within one publicly listed company. These additions, along with the great team Defi Yield has assembled, now allows us to execute on our plans for rapid expansion throughout the DeFi universe. DeFi Technologies is now the most holistic publicly listed DeFi company in the world and should create tremendous shareholder value as we grow both organically and through acquisitions.”
Thomas Kineshanko, co-founder of Protos, says: “We believe that the combined strengths of DeFi Technologies and Protos will allow us to offer a portfolio of the highest quality DeFi products under one roof. Our team at Protos is deeply technical and passionate about DeFi and includes strong DeFi insights, quant trading and structured products capabilities. Through Protos we’ve brought several successful products to market early including the first tokenised hedge fund and one of the first and most successful DeFi yield hedge funds. This acquisition allows us to bring our technical experience and passion for DeFi to more users by leveraging the reach and world-class executive leadership that DeFi Technologies brings to the table.”
