Marble, a capital markets firm focused on AI infrastructure financing and institutional trading, has launched with $11 million in seed funding. The round was led by Polychain Capital, with participation from Maven 11, Ripple, Susquehanna Crypto, Lattice, Blockwall, other venture and strategic investors, and a select group of AI-focused angel investors.
Founded by Matt Ballensweig and Leon Marshall, Marble aims to connect institutional capital with emerging markets across artificial intelligence infrastructure, digital assets and real-world assets. The company operates through two businesses: Marble Compute and Marble Markets.
“Two GPU operators can buy identical hardware and raise very different amounts of debt against it. A lender wants to know who’s buying the compute, at what price and for how long,” said Leon Marshall, co-founder and co-CEO of Marble. “We’re bringing buyers, operators and lenders together so operators can secure customers for their capacity, lock in pricing on the share they want to hedge and raise financing against those cash flows. That gives lenders a clearer basis for deciding how much they can lend and operators a clearer view of how much equity they’ll need to build the next cluster.”
Marble Compute Targets Financing Gaps in AI Infrastructure
Marble Compute is developing private credit financing solutions for independent neoclouds and GPU operators that are expanding AI computing capacity.
Neocloud companies with large-scale operations can take advantage of public markets and prominent banks to secure funding. Smaller independent neocloud firms often have trouble obtaining financing, even when they have already secured revenue from their customers.
Marble Compute is working to bridge this gap by linking institutional lenders with these mid-market firms. The company is planning on originating and underwriting financing deals using conventional and on-chain lending arrangements.
Its underwriting process will assess the value and quality of computing equipment, the creditworthiness of contracted customers and the operator’s ability to repay its debt.
The company also plans to develop compute financing products, including compute forwards. These agreements allow operators and customers to establish rental prices today for computing capacity that will be delivered in the future.
Marble intends to finance these opportunities through individual investment funds before potentially expanding into funds covering multiple opportunities. These plans are subject to applicable regulatory approvals.
“Matt and Leon have built and run institutional trading and lending businesses at scale through multiple market cycles, and they understand market structure from the inside,” said Angelo Goepel, Partner at Polychain Capital. “That experience positions Marble to compete in two of the largest opportunities of this decade: bringing institutional trading to frontier markets and building the credit markets that AI infrastructure needs. We’re excited to lead Marble’s seed.”
Marble Markets Builds an Institutional Trading Platform
The second business, Marble Markets, is developing an institutional trading platform covering digital assets, real-world assets, prediction markets and computing capacity.
Its planned services include spot trading, lending and derivatives for digital assets, block trading in prediction markets, and over-the-counter forwards for compute capacity.
The company also has longer-term plans to introduce tokenized equities and equity swaps, subject to regulatory approvals.
The objective of Marble Markets is to enhance capital efficiency through a process involving institutional clients who will use both traditional and digital assets kept with both custodians and brokerage firms which are part of this network. This will help institutional clients not to place an order for funds at separate counterparties.
Experienced Founders Lead Marble
Marble was founded by Matt Ballensweig and Leon Marshall, who serve as co-CEOs.
Ballensweig previously served as Global Head of Trading at BitGo, where he built and led its institutional trading business. He also co-headed trading and lending at Genesis.
Marshall previously served as CEO of Galaxy Digital’s European business. His earlier experience includes roles at Genesis, Apollo and Trafigura.
Following its launch and seed funding, Marble plans to expand its team with senior professionals from established trading firms, exchanges and AI infrastructure companies.
The company aims to bring institutional financing and trading services to markets that are growing alongside AI infrastructure and digital assets.
