A&O Shearman unveils tenth Fuse cohort spanning digital assets and LegalTech

Nine companies join Fuse’s client-nominated stream under the theme of Digital Assets. Through a collaborative process, Fuse worked with nominating clients to identify companies with strong potential and clear relevance to their digital assets strategies, and where Fuse and the firm’s wider network can add the most value. 

The stream gives clients closer access to emerging market infrastructure providers, supports the development of companies aligned to their strategic priorities, and helps deepen the firm’s understanding of the macro-level challenges shaping their businesses. 

This year, Fuse received nominations from clients including Barclays, Citi, Coinbase, DTCC, Google, HSBC, J.P. Morgan and SG-Forge. The selected companies are building core market infrastructure solutions across the digital asset lifecycle, from settlement and clearing to cross-border payments and tokenized credit. 

Fuse’s LegalTech stream of nine companies was chosen from 315 applicants across 53 countries, the highest number and greatest geographic spread so far. They tackle specific challenges identified by A&O Shearman’s lawyers, including citation checking, AI-powered due diligence, legal training simulation, advanced redaction capabilities, investment funds workflows and regulatory intelligence. 

For the first time, the cohort will also include A&O Shearman’s global social impact partner, United for Global Mental Health. 

Speaking about the cohort, partner and head of Fuse, Shruti Ajitsaria, said: “Digital Assets are scaling rapidly as they move from the margins to the mainstream and the legal frameworks that underpin global finance are evolving in step. Through Fuse, we are positioned at the intersection of that change, working alongside the companies building next-generation infrastructure and the clients who will rely on it. Our role is to ensure that as these markets scale, the legal architecture supporting them is robust and fit for the future.” 

Shruti added: “Innovation thrives at the intersection of collaboration and ambition. Cohort 10 reflects the strength of our partnerships with clients and our commitment to supporting founders who are building the future of law and finance.” 

The companies in Cohort 10 reflect A&O Shearman’s commitment to fostering innovation, collaboration, and forward-thinking solutions for clients and the legal industry. Those companies are: 

Digital assets: 

• BCB Group. A regulated provider of payment, settlement and trading services for the institutional digital asset economy. 
• ClearToken. Building the next generation of financial market infrastructure to bring the benefits and resilience of traditional finance to digital assets. 
• Finteum. Created a new global financial market, enabling banks to borrow from each other for hours at a time. 
• Fnality. A regulated, DLT-based wholesale payment system enabling financial institutions to settle obligations on chain in central bank reserves, the safest form of money in the financial system. 
• LayerZero. LayerZero’s digital asset products make any token or application compatible with every type of blockchain, powering interoperability for over 70% of global stablecoin supply. 
• Monee Finance. Building a pound sterling wholesale settlement layer and regulated digital financial market infrastructure technology (DFMI) across the UK and EU, supporting the issuance, on-chain settlement and trading of digital securities for financial institutions. 
• OpenFX. A cross-border payments infrastructure platform powering programmatic wholesale FX, multi-currency banking and third party payments for fintechs. 
• Ubyx. A mutualized acceptance network for tokenized money, delivering ubiquitous acceptance of regulated stablecoins and tokenized deposits, covering all payments use-cases.
• Zharta. Institutional credit infrastructure for tokenized assets. Through an intent-based credit order book, it enables fixed-rate, fixed-term lending against securities and other onchain collateral.

LegalTech: 

• BeSavvy. An AI-powered legal training platform that replaces passive learning with hands-on simulations of real legal work.
• Cleardox. A semi-automated redaction tool that simplifies and streamlines the anonymization process for professionals handling sensitive documents (including large document sets and bulk anonymization tasks), by eliminating the need for users to manually search for sensitive data.
• Crimson. A case intelligence platform for disputes teams.
• Intelligent Legal Solutions.  ProVision by ILS provides investment funds lawyers with a single system of record for side letters, negotiated terms, obligations and MFN elections.
• Midpage. The data layer for legal research and drafting. It integrates with platforms like Claude, ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Litera to ground outputs in U.S. case law, statutes, and regulations, giving lawyers and the AI tools they already use a verifiable foundation for research and drafting work.
• Reversa. Autonomously manages regulatory obligations across jurisdictions, turning complexity into coordinated, actionable strategies and enabling teams to move beyond reactive compliance to a more proactive, forward-looking approach supported by a clear and continuous view of their regulatory position.
• Sideline. Lets you track changes in your Outlook emails. It’s a simple problem, but Sideline goes deeper, allowing lawyers to give feedback, learn, and collaborate more easily.
• Tower.  An AI-powered diligence management platform helping deal teams collect, organize and analyze disclosures so they can make better decisions earlier and close deals faster.
• United for Global Mental Health. UnitedGMH is a global organization that aims to create a world where mental health is valued, promoted, and protected.

Since Fuse launched in 2017, it has supported almost 100 businesses and contributed to advances in areas including insurance for AI risk, disputes workflow management, cybersecurity, dynamic visualization, geopolitical risk, and cybersecurity. 

The program runs for seven months. Each company is mentored by an A&O Shearman partner who provides relevant subject matter expertise and network. They also have access to Fuse’s specially designed innovation spaces at A&O Shearman’s London and San Francisco offices.