Key Takeaways
- • Fence raised $20 million in new funding led by Galaxy Ventures, with participation from seed investors ParaFi Capital and Crane Ventures Partners (formerly MassMutual Ventures), according to a Business Wire announcement.
- • Fence positions its smart-contract platform as a replacement for the trust and agency providers (verification, calculation, collateral and paying agents) that serve the $15 trillion asset-backed finance market.
- • The company reports $1.5 billion in assets under administration across live facilities funded by BlackRock, Fortress, i80 Group, and BBVA.
- • Fence claims up to 40% lower cost of capital for borrowers and up to 80% lower operational overhead in live facilities; these figures are company-reported.
- • Proceeds will fund U.S. expansion, relocation of CEO Juan Montero to New York, engineering hiring, and AI-driven automation.
Summary
Fence, a technology platform building debt capital markets infrastructure, announced $20 million in new funding led by Galaxy Ventures, according to a Business Wire release dated April 29, 2026. The round was oversubscribed and included seed investors ParaFi Capital and Crane Ventures Partners (FKA MassMutual Ventures), which re-upped only months after Fence's seed round.
The company targets the $15 trillion asset-backed finance market, which the company describes as still relying on spreadsheets, PDFs, and email. Fence's platform replaces legacy trust and agency providers that handle verification, calculation, collateral, and paying agent functions between borrowers and lenders. Clients can adopt a single function or consolidate all three roles into one continuous, smart-contract-based system that verifies assets, calculates borrowing bases, enforces covenants, and moves cash and collateral in real time.
Fence reports that live facilities have achieved up to 40% lower cost of capital for borrowers and up to 80% lower operational overhead, with real-time visibility into 100% of underlying assets. These figures are company-reported and were not independently verified in the release. The company states it has grown to $1.5 billion in assets under administration across live facilities, funded by institutions including BlackRock, Fortress, i80 Group, and BBVA. In one BBVA facility, Fence enabled near-instant drawdowns several times daily, where funding previously occurred weekly or monthly.
Will Nuelle, General Partner at Galaxy Ventures, said Fence is "rebuilding the system itself" and compared its ambitions to Stripe's role in payments. Chief Executive Juan Montero said the company's differentiator is automating the movement of cash and collateral, not only data and reporting. The release links the need for modernization to recent disruptions in private credit and structured finance markets, which it attributes to manual verification and periodic, sampled asset reviews.
The new capital will support U.S. expansion, Montero's relocation to New York, engineering growth, and development of AI-driven agentic debt capital markets operations. Fence describes its long-term goal as becoming global, programmable infrastructure for debt capital markets.
The company targets the $15 trillion asset-backed finance market, which the company describes as still relying on spreadsheets, PDFs, and email. Fence's platform replaces legacy trust and agency providers that handle verification, calculation, collateral, and paying agent functions between borrowers and lenders. Clients can adopt a single function or consolidate all three roles into one continuous, smart-contract-based system that verifies assets, calculates borrowing bases, enforces covenants, and moves cash and collateral in real time.
Fence reports that live facilities have achieved up to 40% lower cost of capital for borrowers and up to 80% lower operational overhead, with real-time visibility into 100% of underlying assets. These figures are company-reported and were not independently verified in the release. The company states it has grown to $1.5 billion in assets under administration across live facilities, funded by institutions including BlackRock, Fortress, i80 Group, and BBVA. In one BBVA facility, Fence enabled near-instant drawdowns several times daily, where funding previously occurred weekly or monthly.
Will Nuelle, General Partner at Galaxy Ventures, said Fence is "rebuilding the system itself" and compared its ambitions to Stripe's role in payments. Chief Executive Juan Montero said the company's differentiator is automating the movement of cash and collateral, not only data and reporting. The release links the need for modernization to recent disruptions in private credit and structured finance markets, which it attributes to manual verification and periodic, sampled asset reviews.
The new capital will support U.S. expansion, Montero's relocation to New York, engineering growth, and development of AI-driven agentic debt capital markets operations. Fence describes its long-term goal as becoming global, programmable infrastructure for debt capital markets.
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