Exclusive: Zaria raises $5M for bitcoin loan servicing
Illustration: Shoshana Gordon/Axios
Zaria, which monitors crypto collateral and provides backup loan servicing for structured finance deals, has raised $5.2 million, CEO Emily Barron tells Axios Pro exclusively.
Why it matters: Investors financing bitcoin-backed loans need independent collateral monitoring and a backup servicer if the original servicer is removed.
Zoom in: Lightspeed Venture Partners led Zaria's seed and pre-seed rounds, with other investors including Refract Ventures and Epoch VC.
How it works: Zaria monitors loan balances against the value of the collateral backing them, checks the servicer's reports and sends its own report to the trustee overseeing the deal.
- It also keeps loan records current so it can take over servicing if the original servicer is removed, once the trustee arranges the access it needs.
State of play: Zaria is collateral agent and backup servicer on Ledn's $188 million securitization of bitcoin-backed loans, while Fidelity Digital Assets holds the collateral.
- If Ledn were removed as servicer, Barron estimates, Zaria could take over within two days, provided the trustee arranges transaction access at Fidelity.
- Zaria charges a monthly fee based on deal size or a fee tied to assets managed, Barron says.
Context: Barron founded Zaria in 2025 after she struggled to find a backup servicer for crypto-backed loans while working on financings at Silicon Valley Bank and later NYDIG.
What's next: Zaria has applied for an OCC charter for a national trust bank. If approved, the company says, it could also act as trustee on securitizations, receiving payments and distributing them to bondholders.
- Beyond crypto-backed loans, Zaria is looking to apply its collateral-monitoring technology to other assets whose values or loan balances change quickly, including securities-backed loans.
