Top Talent From Yearn and Gauntlet Joins Birch Hill as It Builds a Regulated Path to Bring Multifamily, Agriculture and Energy Loans Onchain
NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Birch Hill Holdings (together with its affiliates, "Birch Hill"), a New York-based financial services firm that assesses, structures and distributes credit on public blockchains, today announced a $4 million seed round led by Multicoin Capital, with participation from ParaFi Capital, Castle Island Ventures and Nascent, bringing the company's total financing to date to $6.5 million. Birch Hill will use the proceeds to advance its mission to build a regulated path for onchain credit and structured products.
Birch Hill operates across three divisions: Vaults, Strategies and Enterprise. In Vaults, Birch Hill is an official curator on Morpho, an onchain lending protocol, where it assesses credit and sets risk parameters for its vaults and markets. In Strategies, Birch Hill is creating new onchain credit products through the firm’s Flagship Vaults and Birch Hill Absolute Value, an onchain credit strategy. Birch Hill believes that onchain credit has the potential to be safer and cheaper than offchain private credit through clearer rules for transfers of eligible digital assets and more efficient transfer and administration processes enabled by smart contracts. In Enterprise, Birch Hill has applied to FINRA for broker-dealer membership. Once approved, it plans to place private credit offerings with verified accredited investors through its proprietary platform.
“Loan originators need new sources of capital, and onchain lenders need credit they can trust. We assess, structure and distribute that credit in one firm, so we can bring it onchain with less cost and friction than a traditional deal,” said Bhavin Vaid, CEO of Birch Hill. "We are building Birch Hill inside the U.S. regulatory framework from the start, opting to engage directly with regulators to obtain the appropriate licensing."
The round supports a new, elite, eight-person team, including three hires from Yearn, an onchain vault management platform, and one from Gauntlet, a risk management firm for onchain lending markets. Alex Cornwell, Brad Schlagel and Ian Plosker join from Yearn to lead Birch Hill Absolute Value, an onchain credit strategy in the Strategies division. Mr. Schlagel, who led development of Yearn v3, is now portfolio manager and head of strategy architecture; Mr. Plosker is now portfolio manager and head of platform engineering; and Mr. Cornwell, previously head of business development at Yearn, is now head of capital formation. Jonathan Thomas, who worked with the Yearn team on strategies built on Yearn’s v3 vault standard, now leads vault curation. Traver Normandi, who worked in institutional business development at Gauntlet, is the company’s new head of business development.
Birch Hill sees regulation as the path to institutional scale. Banks, insurers and other fiduciaries generally allocate only to credit held in structures they recognize, and building those structures takes time and regulatory engagement that is hard to replicate. The firm met with the SEC Crypto Task Force in August as part of its work to bring tokenized credit issuance to the U.S.
Eventually, Birch Hill will seek to securitize pools of U.S. loans, starting with multifamily, agriculture and energy loans, designed to be held onchain within the U.S. regulatory framework.
“Private credit is a fragmented, relationship-driven market, which makes it one of the clearest opportunities to build new financial infrastructure onchain,” said Shayon Sengupta, General Partner and Co-Head of Venture at Multicoin Capital. “Birch Hill is building the platform that connects loan originators with stablecoin capital, from structuring the credit through distribution and ongoing risk management. We believe there are significant advantages to bringing that entire process under one roof.”
To learn more about Birch Hill and its Vaults, Strategies and Enterprise divisions, visit https://www.birchhill.io.
About Birch Hill
Birch Hill Holdings (“Birch Hill”) is a New York-based financial services firm that brings U.S. credit onchain. Birch Hill gives onchain allocators access to credit that has been assessed and structured to institutional standards and opens a path to new sources of capital for loan originators. The firm operates through three divisions, Vaults, Strategies and Enterprise. Birch Hill is backed by Multicoin Capital, ParaFi Capital, Castle Island Ventures and Nascent. For more information, visit https://www.birchhill.io.
About Multicoin Capital
Multicoin Capital is a thesis-driven investment firm that invests in cryptocurrencies, tokens, and blockchain companies. Crypto networks and companies will create trillions of dollars of value over the next decade. But investing in tokens is fundamentally different than investing in companies. New tools, heuristics, and security measures are needed to responsibly invest in this ecosystem. We leverage our deep understanding of blockchain technology and crypto markets to deliver exceptional returns. For more information, visit: https://multicoin.capital.
This release is for informational purposes only and is not an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy any security or investment product. Any future offering, if made, will be conducted in accordance with applicable law and appropriate offering documents.
Forward-Looking Statements
This release contains forward-looking statements about Birch Hill’s plans, products and operations, including potential regulatory approvals, development of its platform and credit strategies, future loan securitizations and the timing or availability of any future offering. These statements reflect current expectations and are not guarantees. Actual outcomes may differ materially as a result of factors including delays in or failure to obtain required regulatory approvals; difficulties sourcing, structuring, securitizing or distributing credit assets; borrower defaults and changes in interest rates or credit markets; stablecoin, blockchain, smart-contract, custody and cybersecurity risks; and changes in applicable law, regulatory interpretations or market conditions. Birch Hill undertakes no obligation to update these statements except as required by law.
Contacts
Media Contacts
Bhavin Vaid, CEO, Birch Hill — [bv@birchhill.io]