Natwest’s former Head of Emerging Technology Richard Crook founded LAB577 in 2018. The company is best known for its institutional tokenization platform Digital Asset Shared Ledger (DASL), based on R3’s Corda enterprise blockchain. The platform is used by the likes of SEBA Bank for token issuance. Crook becomes BCB’s Chief Operating Officer, LAB577’s Fuzz [Pezeshkpour] takes on the role of BCB Group CTO with Mark Simpson as Head of Product Solutions.
The two companies had an existing relationship, and LAB577 was already a small shareholder in BCB Group. LAB577’s DASL is integrated with BLINC, BCB Group’s instant settlement network for crypto and fiat currencies.
Crook’s startup had almost £2 million ($2.7m) cash in the bank as of 31 December, and the company raised no outside funds and had four full-time staff, all hailing from Natwest. The terms of the deal were not shared, but yesterday almost £6 million ($8.1m) of ordinary shares were allocated by BCB Group. In contrast, the shares issued for the venture capital funding were preferred stock. The four staff hold equal amounts of stock.
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