Clifford Chance

Clifford Chance advises SC Ventures on a US$100 million digital assets joint venture with SBI Holdings

Global law firm Clifford Chance has advised SC Ventures, Standard Chartered's innovation, fintech investment and ventures arm, on its joint venture with SBI Holdings, a Japanese financial conglomerate, to establish a digital asset joint venture investment company in the United Arab Emirates.

The strategic joint venture will focus on investing in companies across the digital assets spectrum, including markets infrastructure, risk and compliance tools, DeFi, tokenisation, consumer payments and the Metaverse, with intent of making global investments ranging from seed to Series C funding. The parties intend to capitalise the venture vehicle with US$100 million.

The Clifford Chance team advising on the transaction was jointly led by Dubai based partners, Deniz Tas and Jack Hardman, with support from senior associates Gareth Dray, Mhairi Cruickshank and Tom Lloyd, and associate Josh Morrison.

Consistently ranked Band 1 in legal directories, Clifford Chance was recently awarded Deal of the Year at the Legal 500 Middle East and North Africa Awards 2024 for advising DP World on the sale of a minority stake in its strategic UAE assets to CDPQ for US$5 billion, in addition to winning 8 awards at the IFLR Middle East Awards 2023. Clifford Chance was also named International Law Firm of the Year at the IFLR Middle East Awards 2023, International Law Firm of the Year (Middle East) at the Middle East Legal Awards 2023, and Middle East International Law Firm of the Year at the Chambers Middle East Awards 2023.