A $20 million funding round led by Galaxy Digital is backing Fence, a fintech firm using blockchain to overhaul the manual workflows of the $6 trillion asset-backed finance market.
"What Stripe did for payments, Fence is working to do for debt capital markets," said Will Nuelle, General Partner at Galaxy Ventures. "Fence is not layering software on top of a broken system, they are rebuilding the system itself. Their approach to real-time verification, programmable cash flows, and institutional-grade execution represents a step change for asset backed finance, in our view."
The deal, which also included ParaFi Capital and Crane Ventures, targets a sector still largely dependent on spreadsheets, PDFs, and emails to manage credit deals. This legacy system slows transactions and limits investor visibility. Fence replaces these fragmented processes with a single, software-driven platform that verifies assets, enforces rules, and moves cash programmatically in real time.
The impact for clients is a reported 40 percent reduction in capital costs and up to 80 percent lower operational overhead, according to the company. Fence says it already has $1.5 billion in assets under administration on its platform, with clients including financial heavyweights BlackRock, Fortress, and BBVA.
Rebuilding the Plumbing
Fence emphasizes that it uses blockchain technology as back-end infrastructure, not a front-end product for clients. The company does not pitch tokens or crypto wallets to asset managers. Instead, it uses smart contracts behind the scenes to automate the complex rules and cash flows governing structured credit deals.
"We don't want to be seen as a blockchain company. We’re building the infrastructure for the capital markets," Fence co-founder and CEO Juan Montero said in an interview. "Others digitize the paperwork. Fence rebuilt the plumbing."
This approach allows lenders to monitor loan performance and cash flows continuously, a significant shift from the periodic, sample-based reporting that is standard in the industry. The company can onboard new financing facilities in weeks instead of months.
Institutional Traction and RWA Trend
The investment in Fence highlights the growing momentum behind tokenizing real-world assets (RWA). By creating a more efficient and transparent system for credit, Fence provides the foundational rails needed for broader adoption. The firm's ability to attract major institutions like BlackRock and Fortress as clients underscores the demand for such solutions.
This trend is visible elsewhere in the market, with firms like Securitize recently partnering with transfer agent giant Computershare to issue tokenized equity for publicly listed companies. BlackRock itself has also entered the space with its own tokenized money market fund.
Fence plans to use the new capital to accelerate its expansion into the U.S. market and grow its engineering team. The company is also exploring the integration of AI-driven automation to further enhance its platform's capabilities.
This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice.
