Meet Spiko, the largest tokenized fund in the world you’ve probably never heard about

Spiko, a French fintech platform you’ve probably never heard of, said it now hosts the largest tokenized fund on the planet with some $2.39 billion in assets under management as of late last month.

As of end-October, Spiko topped Circle's USYC (Hashnote International Short Duration Yield Fund Ltd) and BlackRock’s BUIDL, both of which hold over $2 billion AUM, Spiko said in a post on its website. On something of a roll, the company also raised $90 million in October at a valuation of around $800 million.

Over the last three months, the firm’s assets, particularly the Spiko Amundi Overnight Swap Fund (SAFO), have grown about 30% a month and its investor base about 18% a month, to more than 10,000 legal entities and individuals.

Spiko offers blockchain-based money market funds under the European Union’s UCITS regulatory framework, which governs the creation, management and cross-border marketing of retail-distributable mutual funds and exchange-traded funds (ETFs).

Tokenized cash equivalents like highly liquid Treasury bills have become a cornerstone of the institutional cryptosphere, with companies including BlackRock and Franklin Templeton receiving much attention for introducing blockchain-based funds.

Spiko CEO Paul-Adrien Hyppolite, who worked as the deputy head of the financial markets division at the French Treasury Department before co-founding the company in June 2023, said the firm’s Gallic roots are possibly a reason people haven’t heard of them. The flagship SAFO tokenized cash fund debuted seven months ago in conjunction with BNP Paribas and Amundi.

“We started in France, so it's very French as a result,” Hyppolite said in an interview. “It was also a bit more difficult because initially we were just a startup, no track record, no brand name, of course. So we are building that up.”

There’s a big opportunity in Europe for tokenized money market funds, according to Hyppolite, where they tie up a tiny fraction of funds compared with regular bank deposits.

The U.S., in contrast, has around $8 trillion in money market funds, about 40% of the size of cash held in bank deposits, which is between $16 trillion and $18 trillion.

“I'm convinced that things will change in the sense that we will catch up,” Hyppolite said.

In the interests of diversification, Spiko is taking itself beyond France, with an expansion to London underway and the SAFO fund registered with U.K. regulator, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA).

“London is now our main office alongside Paris. We are currently looking at the U.S. market. Nothing is happening yet, but we aim to potentially expand to the U.S. next year,” he said.