Company: Lorum

Founders: George Davis (CEO) / James Smith (CTO)

Headquarters: New York, United States

Most Recent Valuation: Undisclosed

Employees: 75+

Founded: 2023

In One Sentence: “Lorum provides clearing, custody, and cash management infrastructure for financial institutions.”

Top quote: “In five years, success means Lorum is the successor to correspondent banking.”

[Answers provided by George Davis]

Who are you building your product/service for, and what painful problem are you taking away from their day?

Lorum serves financial institutions, PSPs, payroll platforms, and marketplaces that move and manage funds across currencies and jurisdictions. These teams operate across many banks and rails, which leaves cash spread across accounts, settlement times hard to predict, and risk difficult to control.

Lorum gives them one clearing and cash management layer with named custody accounts, so they can move money, manage liquidity, and hold client funds compliantly across markets through a single correspondent relationship.

If a top-tier VC is reading this, what would you want them to understand about your company in 30 seconds?

International settlements stay slow because clearing sits inside balance-sheet-driven banks. Lorum is building a neutral clearing, custody, and cash management layer, with a 100% reserve model, direct central bank connectivity, and wholesale FX access, so institutions can move, hold, and manage funds across markets through one relationship. That creates less trapped capital, lower risk, and a network that compounds as volume grows.

Why has nobody else done what you’re doing?

Clearing has always lived inside banks whose profits come from lending and balance sheet yield. That puts speed, certainty, and liquidity efficiency in direct conflict with their business model. Most providers work around this with wrappers, stablecoins, or layers of partnerships. None of those approaches change the underlying account, custody, or treasury infrastructure.

Lorum rebuilt clearing as a specialist function with direct central bank connectivity and wholesale FX, not retail markup. We hold no lending book and we do not compete for deposits. Our incentives point to settlement certainty, custody integrity, and predictable cash management across markets.

What was the “this has to exist” moment that made you start the company?

When James Smith and I started, we thought clearing into the Middle East was the problem. We built Fuse to provide local named accounts and access to domestic rails in a market with heavy money flows but thin clearing infrastructure.

As we expanded, we realised the same constraints showed up in every corridor. Clearing depended on fragmented bank incentives, not consistent infrastructure. That is when Fuse became Lorum, built to operate as the clearing layer so money moves with certainty globally.

How do you make money? Which part of your business model are you most excited about scaling?

We earn fees on clearing, FX, and custody. We are most excited about scaling cash management. Idle balances can be swept into yield-bearing instruments, including tokenized money market funds, so clients earn on cash that would otherwise sit trapped. The decision to deploy remains with the client, not us.

Which proof points matter most right now?

Live volume across multiple currencies, with institutions running core flows through Lorum. Clients use us as their primary clearing and custody relationship, not a backup. Over the last year we grew volume 45x at a 55% average monthly rate, revenue 20x, and the client base 32x.

How does your product/service make the world a better place?

Reliable clearing is economic infrastructure. When settlement is predictable, institutions hold less idle cash, take less counterparty risk, and can serve more markets with confidence. That frees capital for trade, improves remittance reliability, and expands access to financial services in regions where clearing infrastructure has lagged behind demand.

What’s been your biggest unexpected challenge so far, and what did it force you to learn quickly?

The biggest surprise was how local clearing really is. Rails may look similar on paper, but settlement depends on domestic rules, cut-off times, risk controls, and operator behaviour. That forced us to build on-the-ground regulatory coverage and network operations, not just APIs. Predictable settlement only exists when you own the last mile of clearing in each corridor.

What does success look like in 12 months? What about in 5 years?

In 12 months, success means more regulated institutions run their core flows through Lorum, with more currencies live and liquidity management used daily.

In five years, success means Lorum is the successor to correspondent banking: the default clearing, custody, and cash management layer institutions rely on to move and manage money globally through one predictable network.

Finish this sentence: “We’ll know we’ve really made it when…”

……financial institutions no longer depend on fragmented correspondent networks because clearing, custody, and cash management work as they should. “

Website: www.lorum.com

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