WisdomTree Investments, an exchange traded fund asset manager, has become the lead investor in a $17.7m fundraising round for a small blockchain start-up, making it the latest mainstream fund manager to stake out a claim in the nascent world of digital assets.

Securrency, founded in 2015 by a former chief innovation officer at the US Defense Intelligence Agency, designs software to help banks and other financial institutions trade digital assets. Its technology is based on blockchains, online ledgers that cannot easily be tampered with. The same technology underpins cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin.