(Bloomberg) -- Talos Trading Inc., a software provider for digital-asset trading, is poised to double headcount in the Asia-Pacific region over the next 12 months.
The New York-based firm has earmarked Asia as a key market thanks to its deep crypto roots as well as the regulatory clarity offered by jurisdictions such as Hong Kong, Singapore and Japan.
“Asia punches above its weight in terms of contribution to the bottom line of global digital-asset companies. Many of Talos’ top clients, by trading volume, are APAC-based firms,” Samar Sen, Talos’ APAC head, said in an interview. The hiring drive will focus on business development, client services and product and engineering roles, he added.
While the US in many ways remains the nexus of the digital-asset industry, a Securities and Exchange Commission-led crackdown in recent years has seen considerable momentum established in Asian hubs. Larger players including OKX, Coinbase Global and GSR Markets have won Singapore permits in the past year, while Hong Kong recently rolled out a crop of exchange-traded funds that invest directly in cryptocurrencies to pair with its own licensing regime.
With many early crypto adopters concentrated in the region, “the derivative space in Asia also sees a lot of sophisticated trading, much more so than in the US and Europe,” Sen said.
Compared with traditional finance, in which APAC operations typically contribute 10-15% of global revenue for multinational firms, Talos’ APAC division contributes on par with its US and EMEA teams, and is a key market for the business, according to a company spokesperson.
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Founded in 2018, Talos was last valued at $1.25 billion in a $105 million funding round in 2022. Investors in that round included General Atlantic, Citi and Wells Fargo Strategic Capital. Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) led an earlier $40 million investment.
The company has seen a sharp rise in institutional activity in Asia markets recently, Sen said.
“We’re now seeing more macro hedge funds and asset managers entering the digital-asset space as buyers,” he added. “On the sell side, the landscape has changed dramatically. In the early days, many banks stayed on the sidelines, but now you’re seeing banks get more involved in a meaningful way.”
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