Crypto Trading Platform CrossTower Raises $6M in Seed Round

Crypto trading platform CrossTower announced Monday it raised $6 million in a seed funding round led by European tech investor Gerard Lopez.

CrossTower said its platform supports highly active order books and tight spreads for crypto-to-crypto trading. Launched last month, users can trade nine of the most frequently traded cryptocurrencies on the crypto exchange operator’s platform, including bitcoin, ether, XRP and Zcash.

The firm’s co-founder and president, Kristin Boggiano, said CrossTower was launched at a time of change in the financial markets. 

“Jurisdictions and governments around the world are increasingly embracing crypto finance to avail more efficient payment, trading and investment services,” she said. 

She added that while the firm is not chasing a specific volume of users, its mission is to make investing in digital assets more mainstream. 

“While CrossTower aims at a wide market, the institutional-ready approach is one of the founders’ most appealing and distinguishing strengths,” said Gerard Lopez, speaking about what attracted him towards making an investment in CrossTower’s platform. 

CrossTower co-founder and CEO Kapil Rathi said what distinguishes the firm’s trading platform from all the others on the market was its “get paid to trade” pricing model. According to Rathi, the model upsets the status quo by offering rebates to takers and charging a nominal fee to market makers.

“This fee structure is designed to draw traders to the system as we will pay takers of liquidity 1 bps of the value of each trade,” Rathi said.

In his view, the model can also provide substantial liquidity to market makers.