Exclusive: Zaria raises $5M for bitcoin loan servicing

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.