Catena Clearing, a next-generation clearing and settlement startup, has successfully raised $5 million in its Seed Round. The round drew strong participation from a diverse set of investors including Floating Point, Shaper Capital, Teamworthy Ventures, Plug and Play Tech Center, SpringTime Ventures, Liquid 2, Blue Moon, and Blue Impact Supply Chain Ventures.

Led by Jeremy Baksht, Catena Clearing is building technology that aims to reshape how financial transactions are processed in a landscape where speed, transparency, and compliance have become non-negotiable.

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The Problem with Clearing Today

Clearing  - the process that sits between trade execution and settlement  - remains one of the most outdated, opaque, and risk-prone areas of finance. Despite advances in trading platforms and digital payment solutions, the infrastructure supporting clearing often relies on decades-old systems.

This creates bottlenecks for institutions that must navigate slow processing, limited visibility, and higher exposure to counterparty risk. Catena Clearing is stepping directly into this gap with technology designed to shorten clearing cycles, reduce systemic risk, and provide greater operational transparency.

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Why This Round Matters

The $5M seed funding signals strong conviction from investors in Catena Clearing’s approach. The inclusion of both early-stage venture funds and industry-aligned investors like Plug and Play demonstrates a belief that clearing technology isn’t just overdue for modernization  - it represents a massive untapped business opportunity.

Given how global financial market volumes are accelerating, with more transactions happening in real time and across borders, demand for smarter clearing solutions has never been more urgent. Catena Clearing is entering the market at a critical juncture.

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Strategic Investor Mix

The seed round features a blend of investors that provides Catena Clearing with both capital and expertise:

• Floating Point and Shaper Capital bring early-stage financial technology insight.
  
• Teamworthy Ventures and Liquid 2 provide networks for scaling talent and customer acquisition.
  
• Plug and Play Tech Center, a well-known accelerator, can open doors to corporate partnerships.
  
• Blue Moon and Blue Impact Supply Chain Ventures add sectoral expertise, particularly in logistics and complex value chains where clearing can add efficiency.
  

This strategic mix positions Catena Clearing not just to build, but to pilot and deploy quickly across industries.

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A Critical Founder Insight: The Real Bottleneck in Scaling Fintech

For many fintech founders, the instinct is to innovate at the edges of the system  - user interfaces, consumer apps, or API-driven products. But in financial services, the true leverage often lies deeper in the stack. Clearing, settlement, and compliance infrastructure are the places where risk concentrates and friction slows growth.

Here’s the critical insight: founders who ignore clearing during early scaling stages eventually hit a wall. They find themselves forced into costly retrofits to meet compliance and clearing requirements when transaction volume explodes. The lesson is to design your product roadmap assuming institutional-grade clearing from day one.

Even if your first customers don’t demand it, the investors and enterprise partners you’ll eventually want definitely will. By prioritizing clearing early, you create a structural advantage when competing against startups that treated it as an afterthought. Catena Clearing’s very existence is proof of how vital this overlooked layer has become.

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Catena Clearing’s Vision

The company is focused on building technology that doesn’t just digitize existing processes but redefines the economics of clearing. By creating systems that shorten clearing cycles and improve reconciliation, Catena Clearing is aiming for:

• Reduced counterparty risk for financial institutions.
  
• Improved liquidity through faster settlement.
  
• Regulatory alignment with upcoming requirements on transparency and systemic risk reduction.
  
• Scalability across industries, not only finance but also supply chains and logistics where clearing delays slow operations.
  

If successful, Catena Clearing could become a central node in the financial plumbing of the digital economy.

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Industry and Market Outlook

The clearing and settlement market is both massive and underserved by innovation. Consider these trends:

• According to the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), global payment systems process over $600 trillion annually, yet many still depend on legacy infrastructure.
  
• The DTCC (Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation) has highlighted that shortened clearing cycles  - such as the shift to T+1 settlement in U.S. equities in 2024  - represent a seismic industry shift requiring new solutions.
  
• The World Economic Forum estimates that inefficiencies in post-trade processing cost financial markets billions each year in operational expenses and risk management.
  
• With the rise of digital assets, including tokenized securities and crypto markets, new clearing mechanisms will be essential to avoid systemic failures.
  

Analysts expect the global post-trade services market to grow to over $30 billion annually by 2030, fueled by digitization, regulatory shifts, and cross-border expansion.

Catena Clearing’s timing is strategic: it is building during a period when regulators, exchanges, and institutions are openly seeking alternatives to outdated infrastructure. The $5M seed round provides the resources to push forward with both product development and early enterprise partnerships.

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Challenges on the Horizon

The road ahead is not without challenges:

• Regulatory complexity: Clearing sits at the most tightly regulated part of finance.
  
• Integration hurdles: Large institutions are slow to adopt new infrastructure.
  
• Competition: Established players like DTCC or Euroclear are experimenting with modernization.
  

Still, startups like Catena Clearing have an advantage: agility, the ability to innovate without legacy baggage, and the funding to execute on ambitious roadmaps.

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Looking Ahead

Catena Clearing’s $5M seed raise marks more than a milestone for the company  - it underscores a broader trend: investors are betting on deep infrastructure plays in fintech, not just consumer-facing innovation. By modernizing one of the least visible but most important aspects of financial systems, Catena Clearing could become a foundational player in the next wave of fintech infrastructure.