Clifford Chance

Clifford Chance advises on digital trade finance network Contour's Series A+ financing

Leading international law firm Clifford Chance has advised the ground-breaking blockchain digital trade finance network, Contour, on its Series A+ preferred financing and fundraising round, securing new investment from Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation as well as existing investors.

Contour now brings together 13 leading regional and global trade banks, including Bangkok Bank, BNP Paribas, Citi, CTBC, HSBC, ING, SEB, SMBC, and Standard Chartered, who are also working to drive adoption of the network amongst their global communities of bank and corporate clients. Contour's non-bank shareholders include R3 (developers of the Corda enterprise blockchain technology on which the Contour platform is based), Bain & Company and CryptoBLK with Contour now operating in a live business environment across 44 countries.

Clifford Chance's Tech Group previously advised Contour on the creation of its revolutionary blockchain-based messaging platform for letters of credit and other trade finance instruments, delivering combined expertise from the Firm's core technology, IP, data and finance specialists, alongside corporate, anti-trust, employment and other teams in the Tech Group. In live production since October 2020, the Contour platform has seen usage from large multi-national players aside from its investors. With the funds raised in the Series A+ round, Contour is expected to expand into other areas of trade finance and double its size in the next year.

The Clifford Chance team advising Contour on its platform documentation and Series A+ financing was led by partner Paul Landless (Singapore), with support from partners Valerie Kong, Lena Ng (Singapore), Andrew Patterson, Monica Sah (London), Ling Ho (Hong Kong) and Richard Blewett (Brussels), consultant Clara Tang (Hong Kong), external consultant Luke Grubb, chartered trade mark attorney Emilie Adams (London), counsel Yan Yuan (Shanghai), senior associates Ivan Chan, Miles Binney (Singapore), Chen Ji (Shanghai) and Rachel Cheng (Hong Kong), associate David Ho (Singapore) and trainee Emily Tong (Shanghai). The dedicated project management team was led by Tracy Lau and Debby Ratnasari in Clifford Chance's Best Delivery and Innovation department.

Paul Landless said, “We are honoured to have advised Contour on this landmark transaction, as they look to further digitise trade finance around the world promoting speed, transparency and sustainability in supply chain networks across industries."

Matthew Yee, senior legal counsel at Contour said, "This is a significant milestone for Contour and our strategic investors.  It was a pleasure to work with the Clifford Chance team to realise our vision of becoming the new global standard for trade finance."