Onramp Raises Series a at $135 Million Valuation to Expand Multi-Institution Custody
Onramp raised a Series A financing round at a $135 million post-money valuation, the company announced via GlobeNewswire on May 14. The round was led by Early Riders, a venture firm focused on Bitcoin (BTC) infrastructure.
Onramp builds a multi-institution custody platform designed for registered investment advisers and wealth management firms seeking to offer Bitcoin exposure to clients without taking direct custody of the asset. The funding arrives as institutional Bitcoin infrastructure draws increasing capital from venture investors.
Onramp Series A and Bitcoin Custody Model
Onramp’s core product is a custody architecture that distributes client Bitcoin holdings across multiple licensed custodians simultaneously rather than concentrating assets at a single institution.
The design is intended to reduce single-point-of-failure risk, a concern that grew sharply after the 2022 collapse of FTX exposed how custodial concentration could leave customers unable to access their assets.
Custody, in the context of cryptocurrency, refers to the secure storage and management of private keys, the cryptographic codes that control access to digital assets. A financial adviser who holds a client’s Bitcoin through a traditional custodian relies entirely on that institution’s security practices and solvency.
Onramp’s multi-institution model splits the custody responsibility across several regulated entities, so no single institution’s failure can result in total loss of client assets.
The Series A proceeds will fund expansion of Onramp’s adviser-facing platform and hiring across engineering and sales, according to the GlobeNewswire announcement. Early Riders led the round, with additional participation from existing investors.
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How We Got Here
Onramp was founded in the aftermath of the 2022 crypto credit crisis as a direct response to custodial risk concerns among financial advisers.
The platform gained traction through 2024 and 2025 as the approval of spot Bitcoin ETFs in January 2024 accelerated adviser interest in digital asset allocations. Many registered investment advisers, who are legally required to maintain custody standards under SEC rules, found that ETF wrappers solved part of the compliance problem but did not give clients direct Bitcoin exposure.
Onramp positioned its multi-institution custody model as a bridge between the simplicity of an ETF and the sovereignty of self-custody.
By 2025, the platform had attracted a user base drawn primarily from independent registered investment advisers managing client portfolios between $1 million and $100 million in assets. The $135 million Series A valuation represents a meaningful step up from the company’s seed-stage capitalization, reflecting the growth in adviser demand for Bitcoin-specific infrastructure since the ETF approval cycle.
The venture landscape for Bitcoin infrastructure has itself expanded.
Early Riders, the lead investor in this round, focuses exclusively on the Bitcoin ecosystem, a narrowing of scope that reflects the maturation of the sector and the growing separation between Bitcoin-native infrastructure plays and the broader altcoin and DeFi investment universe.
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Why Advisers Need Multi-Institution Custody
Registered investment advisers face a specific regulatory constraint that makes standard cryptocurrency custody complicated. Under the SEC’s custody rule, advisers must use a “qualified custodian” to hold client assets.
Most cryptocurrency custodians meet this standard individually, but few adviser-focused platforms have built infrastructure to aggregate custody across multiple qualified custodians in a single, unified client reporting interface.
Onramp’s value proposition is that an adviser can onboard a client once, and the platform distributes the resulting Bitcoin position across its custodian partners automatically. The client sees a single account view.
The adviser maintains a compliant custody structure. And the underlying Bitcoin is held at multiple institutions, reducing concentration risk.
This structure is distinct from a Bitcoin ETF, where the client owns shares in a fund that holds Bitcoin, rather than holding Bitcoin directly.
Direct ownership matters for clients who want to withdraw Bitcoin to a personal wallet, use it as collateral for a loan, or pass it to heirs outside of a fund structure.
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What Comes Next
Onramp’s near-term priority is expanding its custodian partner network and building reporting integrations with portfolio management software used by financial advisers. The $135 million valuation gives the company runway to pursue enterprise sales cycles, which in the wealth management industry can span six to eighteen months.
A key milestone will be the number of advisers and assets under management the platform reports in its next public update. Growing regulatory clarity around digital asset custody standards, if the SEC finalizes updated qualified custodian guidance in 2026, would accelerate adoption by removing compliance uncertainty that has kept some advisers on the sidelines.
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