Moelis & Co. co-founder to head group advising blockchain companies
New York-based funding banking large Moelis & Co. has launched a International Blockchain Group that can present advisory companies to blockchain and crypto corporations.
The group is being fronted by Moelis & Co. co-founder John Momtazee and supported by a workforce of senior bankers which have vital expertise in advising blockchain corporations, in response to the agency.
Momtazee, primarily based in Los Angeles, can be the worldwide head of media funding banking on the firm and was beforehand the managing director within the world media group for UBS Funding Financial institution.
Momtazee noted in a July 25 announcement that Moelis & Co. is unfazed by the robust downturn and volatility of the crypto market this yr, because the agency sees “robust long-term prospects” within the utility of blockchain tech within the world industrial panorama.
Throughout an interview with Bloomberg on July 25, he suggested that coming into blockchain and crypto throughout a bear market was the right time to start out advising corporations.
“We love the timing. We predict that to pile in on good days and say, ‘Right here we’re, prepared to assist,’ feels much less real than when there’s a problem,” he mentioned, including that “any disruptive know-how goes to have volatility.”
The Group will look to work with “firms using blockchain in addition to rising and main blockchain corporations, together with these looking for to construct a presence in Web3.” The group may even coordinate with Moelis & Co.’s world companions to offer shoppers entry to potential alternatives within the crypto/blockchain sector.
Moelis & Co. has additionally onboarded Lou Kerner because the senior advisor of the International Blockchain Group. Kerner is the founding father of Web3 consulting agency CryptoOracle Collective and a associate at crypto enterprise fund Blockchain Coinvestors.
Moelis & Co. has already dipped its toes into the sector, with lately bankrupted crypto lending agency Voyager Digital buying its advisory companies at first of July following its ill-fated short-term suspension of withdrawals.
The agency was based in 2007 and has 21 places of work throughout North and South America, Australia, Europe, Asia and the Center East. In keeping with data from Macro Tendencies, the agency had a internet price of round $2.97 billion as of July 22, whereas the corporate claims to have advised on greater than $3.5 trillion price of transactions to this point.
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The funding financial institution’s different co-founder Ken Moelis additionally has direct publicity to the house by way of participation within the $142 million Collection C funding spherical from stablecoin issuer Paxos in December 2020.
Moelis has held comparatively constructive sentiments in direction of crypto up to now, and in June final yr, he likened the market to the California gold rush of the mid-1800s.
“It is just like the gold rush of 1848. Lots of people did not know if there was gold within the floor, however Levi’s made a enterprise promoting denims and Wells Fargo made a banking enterprise,” Moelis mentioned.
