Panther Hollow launches multi-strategy merchant bank for compliant RWA and yield strategies
The New York-based firm combines venture investing, structured yield, and an incubator across Ethereum, Solana, Canton, and StarkNet in a single institutional framework.
A merchant bank that also runs a fund complex and an incubator sounds like someone trying to do everything at once. Panther Hollow Ventures is betting that doing everything at once is exactly what institutional crypto needs right now.
The New York-based firm, founded in November 2022, has built what it calls a “closed-loop investment platform” that bundles pre-seed venture investing with a structured liquid yield fund. The yield side blends real-world asset strategies with market-neutral digital asset approaches, all wrapped in a formally verified institutional framework.
Built during the wreckage
November 2022 was roughly five minutes after FTX imploded, vaporizing billions in customer funds and sending institutional confidence in crypto to somewhere near absolute zero. Panther Hollow’s founders, crypto attorneys Eric Swartz and Jacqueline Escobar, ran toward it. Swartz serves as Founding GP and General Counsel, while Escobar holds the titles of Founding Partner and COO.
Panther Hollow’s first portfolio company has already achieved a $0 cost basis after raising follow-on institutional capital from firms including Fidelity, Brevan Howard, DRW, and a16z. That happened in under three years from the initial investment.
The multi-chain, multi-strategy playbook
Panther Hollow operates across four blockchain ecosystems: Ethereum, Solana, Canton, and StarkNet. Panther Hollow recently launched an accelerator focused specifically on the Canton blockchain, with applications open to founders building within that ecosystem. Canton was developed by Digital Asset and has attracted interest from traditional financial institutions looking for permissioned blockchain infrastructure that still connects to broader networks.
The structured liquid yield fund targets a combination of RWA strategies and market-neutral digital asset approaches. RWA tokenization has become one of crypto’s most bankable narratives over the past two years, with traditional finance giants from BlackRock to Franklin Templeton moving tokenized treasury products on-chain.