Crypto paytech BCB Group acquires software firm LAB577, gains new CTO and COO

Crypto payments service provider BCB Group has acquired financial services software company LAB577 for an undisclosed sum.

BCB CTO Farzad Pezeshkpour

LAB577’s ledger and settlement product DASL bridges fiat banks and digital asset custodians. Following the acquisition, DASL will be integrated fully into BCB’s BLINC, a crypto instant settlement and real-time payment (RTP) network.

LAB577 founder Richard Crook, who will step into the role of COO at BCB Group as part of the deal, says DASL becoming part of BLINC will extend participants’ ability to settle instantly in any currency or digital asset “with no limits”.

BCB Group founder and CEO Oliver von Landsberg-Sadie says bringing LAB577 into the fold means “we can build stuff the industry needs much more closely and quickly together”.

LAB577’s team will join BCB’s engineering and commercial teams, with Farzad Pezeshkpour becoming BCB’s new CTO.

Pezeshkpour has 20 years’ experience in investment banking across engineering, risk management and technical roles at NatWest and Deutsche Bank.

In recent years, he has been working with distributed ledger technology firms including Ripple, Ethereum and Corda.

BCB Group provides business accounts and cryptocurrency and foreign exchange market liquidity and custody for financial institutions plugged into the cryptosphere.

Its clients can access an end-to-end suite of payment processing, cryptocurrency trading and custody services accessible through its unified API-enabled platform.

The group recently landed the UK blockchain industry’s largest ever Series A funding round, worth $60 million (£45 million).