MoonPay to Acquire North Capital in $60 Million All-Stock Deal, Expanding Into Tokenized Securities
Key Takeaways
- •MoonPay agreed to acquire North Capital in an all-stock transaction worth more than $60 million.
- •North Capital operates SEC-registered broker-dealers, an alternative trading system, a transfer agent and an investment adviser, and has supported over $8.7 billion in primary and secondary transaction volume.
- •The acquisition will enable MoonPay to conduct the issuance, custody and secondary trading of private securities, including tokenized securities, in the United States.
- •Both companies' boards have approved the deal, which remains subject to regulatory approvals before North Capital becomes a wholly owned MoonPay subsidiary.
- •The purchase is MoonPay's fourth acquisition this year, following Sodot, DFlow and Entendre, as the company builds out services for tokenized real-world assets.
MoonPay, a crypto payments company, has agreed to acquire North Capital, a private-markets infrastructure provider, in a move that takes the firm into regulated United States securities infrastructure as it builds out services for tokenized real-world assets (RWAs).
According to an announcement shared with Cointelegraph on Wednesday, the acquisition will allow MoonPay to expand into the issuance, custody and secondary trading of private securities, including tokenized securities.
The all-stock deal is worth more than $60 million, a person familiar with the matter told Cointelegraph. MoonPay CEO Ivan Soto-Wright said the acquisition would help the company connect parts of the financial system through "modern, programmable infrastructure."
North Capital, based in Midvale, Utah, operates broker-dealers, an alternative trading system (ATS), a transfer agent and an investment adviser, all registered with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. The company has supported more than $8.7 billion in primary and secondary transaction volume, according to the announcement.
Those registrations cover the core plumbing of the tokenized securities market: broker-dealers facilitate securities transactions, a transfer agent maintains the official record of who owns a security, and an ATS provides a regulated venue for secondary trading. Bringing that licensed stack in-house would give MoonPay end-to-end capabilities across issuance, custody and trading of tokenized private securities — the regulated foundation for the RWA services the company is building out.
Once the transaction closes, North Capital will become a wholly owned MoonPay subsidiary. Both companies' boards have approved the acquisition, which remains subject to regulatory approvals and other customary closing conditions — the step that will determine when North Capital's infrastructure can be folded into MoonPay's operations.
Data compiled by Traxcn shows North Capital last raised funding in October 2021, in a $2.18 million seed round at an unspecified valuation. Its investors include Karlani Capital and Fiduciary Trust International. Traxcn currently values MoonPay at $3.4 billion.
The deal is the latest in a string of acquisitions by MoonPay this year as the company pushes beyond crypto payments. Earlier purchases included key management company Sodot, trading infrastructure platform DFlow and AI finance operations platform Entendre, adding capabilities across institutional custody, onchain trading and financial operations. Together, the purchases assemble layers spanning key management, onchain trading, financial operations and, with North Capital, regulated securities infrastructure — the components needed to support tokenized real-world assets end to end.
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