Last summer, Haider Rafique flew out to Atlanta to meet with the chairman of the New York Stock Exchange. What was supposed to be a 30-minute chat turned into a four-hour marathon conversation, recalled Rafique, the global managing partner of corporate affairs at OKX, one of the world’s largest crypto exchanges.
Fast-forward a few months and what started as an informal chat became a series of meetings, intense due diligence, and eventually a mammoth deal. Intercontinental Exchange, the publicly-traded parent company of the New York Stock Exchange, has invested in OKX at a $25 billion valuation and will take a seat on OKX’s board, the two firms announced on Thursday. Rafique declined to specify how much money Intercontinental Exchange put into OKX or the terms of the investment, but did tout the firms’ shared vision of the future.
“There was great chemistry in how we looked at the world and the future of tokenized securities, how derivatives should make it to the global stage, how TradFi [and] digital assets should merge together,” said Rafique, referring to his initial sit down with Jeffrey Sprecher, the chairman of the New York Stock Exchange.
The tie-up isn’t a pure venture play. OKX will provide Intercontinental Exchange with a live price feed of cryptocurrencies tradeable on its exchange. But even more significantly, OKX will let its users trade tokenized stocks and derivatives listed on the New York Stock Exchange in a feature likely to launch in the latter half of 2026. Tokenization refers to the process of taking financial assets and putting them into blockchain wrappers, which proponents say can reduce transaction fees, among other benefits. “This is not just a very casual investment,” said Rafique.
New competition
The injection of capital into OKX is a big commitment from the owner of the world’s marquee stock exchange, but it isn’t the first move that Intercontinental Exchange has made to keep pace with the rapidly shifting landscape in how people trade. In November, the trading giant said it would invest $2 billion into the prediction market Polymarket in a deal that valued the startup at $9 billion. And in January, Intercontinental Exchange announced that it was developing its own blockchain-based trading infrastructure for tokenized securities.
The trading giant also isn’t the only veteran financial company to make a bet on a crypto firm as trading habits shift. In November, the market maker Citadel Securities invested $200 million into Kraken in a deal that valued the digital assets exchange at $20 billion.
“The competitors in the future for firms like Intercontinental Exchange won’t necessarily look like traditional institutions like CME or NASDAQ. They might look like DeFi protocols or super apps,” said Michael Blaugrund, the vice president of strategic initiatives at Intercontinental Exchange, referring to the likes of Robinhood and Uniswap, the DeFi platform that recently announced a tie-up with BlackRock.
In an interview, Blaugrund declined to give more specifics on how his company was building a blockchain-based trading platform. That initiative and the plan to let OKX users trade tokenized stocks are “complementary projects, but they’re not a single project,” he said.
For OKX, the partnership with Intercontinental Exchange is part of the company’s push to refashion its image from an offshore exchange in East Asia into a global trading hub that plays by the rules in the U.S.—especially as its competitor Binance has come under recent fire for its compliance program. “We are the sober ones in the industry in many ways,” claimed Rafique.
In April, OKX relaunched in the States two months after it reached a $500 million settlement with the Department of Justice in which it pleaded guilty to one count of operating an unlicensed money transmitting business. Rafique said that he plans to relocate up to 2,000 of his exchange’s 5,000 employees to the U.S. but declined to give a timeline. ”Especially to support this product, I think we would absolutely invest a lot in the U.S.,” he said, referring to the plan to let OKX users trade tokenized stocks and other assets from Intercontinental Exchange on its platform.
And Rafique hopes that that plan isn’t the last time OKX works with Intercontinental Exchange, or ICE. “We’re a three-letter company. They’re a three-letter company,” he said. “And my aspiration is that maybe there’s a much bigger relationship.”
See you tomorrow,
Ben Weiss
X: @bdanweiss
Email: benjamin.weiss@fortune.com
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VENTURE DEALS
- Crossover Markets, a New York City-based digital asset trading technology firm, raised $31 million in Series B funding. Tradeweb Markets led the round and was joined by DRW Venture Capital, Ripple, Virtu Financial, Wintermute Ventures, and others.
- Reclaim Security, a New York City-based cybersecurity platform, raised $20 million in Series A funding. Acrew Capital led the round and was joined by QP Investors and Ibex Investors.
- Photoncycle, an Oslo, Norway-based energy storage company, raised $17 million in funding from NordicNinja and Voima Ventures.
- UnityAI, a Nashville, Tenn.-based developer of an autonomous platform designed for health care operations, raised $8.5 million in Series A funding. Third Prime led the round and was joined by Nashville Capital Network, Whistler Capital Partners, Max Ventures, Company Ventures, and existing investors.
- AgriPass, a Tel Aviv, Israel-based developer of AI-powered sustainable agriculture tools, raised $7.5 million in seed funding. Harbor Venture Consulting led the round and was joined by existing investor E44 Climate Ventures and others.
- Artemis, a Houston, Texas-based AI platform designed to help solar and home energy contractors design, sell, and finance projects, raised $6 million in funding. Long Journey Ventures and Copec WIND Ventures led the round and was joined by Ludlow Ventures, Shrug Capital, Coalition Operators, Plug and Play Ventures, and others.
- Diligent AI, a London, U.K.-based developer of AI agents designed to automate risk and compliance workflows for fintechs and banks, raised $2.5 million in seed funding. Speedinvest led the round and was joined by Shapers, and angel investors.
PRIVATE EQUITY
- TPG invested approximately $250 million in Findhelp, an Austin, Texas-based social care technology platform.
- Royal Cup, a portfolio company of Braemont Capital, agreed to acquire Farmer Brothers Coffee Co., a Fort Worth, Texas-based coffee roaster, wholesaler, and distributor, for $1.29 per share.
- Enverus, backed by Blackstone, agreed to acquire Spatial Business Systems, a Littleton, Colo.-based AI-powered design automation platform designed for electric and gas utilities, telecommunications providers, and engineering teams. Financial terms were not disclosed.
- Southern Home Services, a portfolio company of Gryphon Investors, acquired Dunn's HVAC, Plumbing & Electrical, an Anniston, Ala.-based provider of heating, cooling, plumbing, and electrical services. Financial terms were not disclosed.
PEOPLE
- Bessemer Venture Partners, a San Francisco-based venture capital firm, promoted Aditya Nidmarti to vice president.
- Brenton Point Capital Partners, a New York City-based private equity firm, hired Evan Weinstein as partner, Greg Martinsen as COO and CFO, and Alexandria Haggar as senior associate. Weinstein was previously with Incline Equity Partners, Martinsen was with InTandem Capital Partners, and Haggar was with Sterling Investment Partners.
