Lombard Systems Raises $4 Million to Fast-Track Delivery-versus-Lock Adoption for Tokenized Collateral

Lombard Systems, the team behind the Delivery-versus-Lock (DvL) standard, announced a successful $4 million raise across pre-seed and seed rounds led by Ethereal Ventures, with contributions from Alps Capital, First Commit Capital, Veris Ventures, Atka and other investors. The funding is earmarked to accelerate institutional adoption of DvL, advance US, UK and other jurisdictional legal opinions, expand ready-to-use integrations with banks, broker-dealers and transfer agents, and grow Lombard’s team as it moves toward its first live deployments. The move comes amid a broader shift toward tokenized assets and faster settlement. While tokenization has already sped up settlement processes, the underlying collateral financing infrastructure has lagged behind.

lending arrangements often require borrowers to transfer collateral to lenders or third-party agents, accompanied by bespoke documentation and slow enforcement in the event of default. Tokenized assets, including stocks and funds, are gaining scale, but practical lending against tokenized collateral has yet to be fully enforceable under existing securities law. Lombard Systems’ DvL framework provides a solution: it enables institutions to treat tokenized and digital assets as usable collateral without relocating them from the borrower’s securities accounts. Under DvL, assets remain in custody in the original account, while lenders receive a legally enforceable security interest evidenced by a cryptographically signed Credit Receipt. The borrower retains beneficial ownership throughout, and only the funded amount is released to the lender if a pre-agreed enforcement event occurs.

This structure preserves control for the borrower while granting a legally solid claim to the lender, streamlining the path to secured financing on tokenized assets. Rico van der Veen, co-founder and CEO of Lombard Systems, underscored the approach: “Tokenized stocks and funds are increasingly common, but origination and enforcement of loans against chunky tokenized collateral must be both fast and compliant with existing securities law. DvL keeps assets in place within their current securities accounts and provides lenders with enforceable rights—enforcement terms are predefined. That combination is what turns tokenized assets into practical collateral.” With the new capital, Lombard Systems is moving toward its inaugural institutional deployments, lining up additional integrations with banks, broker-dealers and transfer agents in the near term. The company has positioned DvL as a white-label capability that can be deployed within existing infrastructure, either directly by institutions or through technology partners. The framework supports a range of use cases, including Lombard and margin lending, financing against tokenized money market funds and equities, securities lending by pledge, and initial margin for uncleared derivatives under ISDA Master Agreements. Industry observers note that tokenization is reshaping how capital markets think about settlement and financing.

Eeshaan Sachatheva, co-CIO at Ethereal Ventures, remarked that Lombard is building a crucial piece of the infrastructure needed to scale tokenized finance: “DvL provides a standardized mechanism for financing tokenized assets, enabling faster, safer, and more scalable lending against collateral that remains in place.” Lombard Systems’ broader roadmap includes finalizing legal opinions in the United States, England, Wales and five additional jurisdictions, expanding the set of control locations, and widening institutional integrations. The company anticipates publishing the full DvL standard in the first quarter of 2027 and invites institutions to register at dvlstandard.org. Additional information, including the founder’s note and a deeper look at the benefits of increased collateral mobility versus efficiency, is available at lombardsystems.com. Lombard Systems operates under the trading name Semiliquid Tech Labs Ltd, with offices in Dubai and New York.

As tokenization accelerates, the market for tokenized collateral and related financing continues to evolve rapidly. The new funding round signals investor confidence in DvL’s potential to harmonize tokenized asset markets with established securities law, enabling faster, more scalable secured lending for a growing range of tokenized assets and bringing tokenized finance closer to mainstream institutional practice.