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It only takes the hit of a button to buy crypto, but it takes much more to make the transaction happen.
The crypto market has faced accelerating momentum this year. Regulators are providing clearer guidelines, traditional financial institutions are entering the space with urgency, and the demand for digital assets shows no signs of slowing.
“Our team would have to be twice the size without AWS. They really help us scale without adding unnecessary complexity.”
But behind the scenes, FinTech startups and financial services companies offering crypto need robust systems that can handle the speed, scale, and security of a market that never sleeps.
That’s where Aquanow comes in. The Vancouver-based firm provides digital assets infrastructure for more than 300 global companies, from startups to established financial players.
“If you’re a FinTech platform and you’re offering stock trading on your platform today, we want to make it as easy as possible to offer crypto trading,” said Phil Sham, CEO of Aquanow. “Think of us as the backend engine that is being used to onboard the next 100-million users into crypto.”
In order to be that engine, Aquanow needs to maintain a scalable, reliable infrastructure capable of handling more than $100 billion in transaction volumes, all while keeping pace with the security and regulatory demands of the financial sector.
Growing crypto across borders
Aquanow was founded in 2018 by Sham, CTO Andy Leung and COO Jae Moon, who passed away last year. The group recognized that a growing crypto sector would need strong infrastructure to serve as its backbone.
With their combined expertise in capital markets and technology, the founders set out to build infrastructure that gives businesses access to global markets and helps them source crypto at the best prices.
Today, Aquanow has more than 100 team members and ranked amongst the fastest growing Canadian companies with a four-year revenue growth rate of 3,022 percent, according to the Deloitte Technology Fast 50 list.
The company works with banks, brokerage firms, and payment companies across 55 countries to provide enterprise-ready solutions to help them access the global cryptocurrency market.
According to an April survey from KPMG Canada and the Canadian Association of Alternative Assets and Strategies, 22 percent more financial service organizations offered crypto asset products and services in 2023 compared to 2021.
As regulatory clarity improves and institutional adoption accelerates for crypto, Aquanow wants to power the infrastructure that businesses depend on for secure, scalable transactions.
Serving these global clients means seamlessly navigating local regulations. For that, the startup relies on AWS.
By hosting its infrastructure on AWS’s global network of data centres, Sham said Aquanow can easily manage its operations in different regions and stay compliant with local laws, all while keeping its services running smoothly.
“AWS really allowed us to expand globally,” Sham said. “We use their local setups to scale, fulfill regional requirements, and offer better products to local markets.”
Hitting a moving target
Handling sensitive financial data, particularly in the crypto sector, puts Aquanow under constant pressure to keep its systems airtight, and with the rise of institutional interest in crypto, the bar for the security has only increased.
Regulations in the space are also a moving target, with different markets enforcing various levels of scrutiny regarding how financial data is stored, encrypted, and monitored.
“Security was always the most important part of our business from the beginning,” Leung said, adding that the company continually looks at its exposure and potential risks.
To manage those risks, Aquanow also relies on AWS’s cloud security services, which includes encryption, threat detection, and real-time monitoring.
“Monitoring and threat detection are critical for us,” Leung added. “Our security team works closely with AWS’s security solution architects to ensure we’re following best practices. They are our go-to experts whenever we have questions about optimizing our monitoring processes within the AWS environment.”
Leung said these features allow Aquanow to meet the security demands of financial institutions while keeping its operations smooth and reliable across its global footprint.
Growth without growing pains
As Aquanow expands its operations, it becomes increasingly challenging to manage infrastructure and services across multiple regions. Sham said bridging traditional centralized systems with decentralized blockchain technology requires infrastructure that can help the startup quickly adapt and grow without causing bottlenecks.
“We’re dealing with financial transactions, we’re dealing with money, there’s a lot of requirements that go beyond just having a button, and AWS really helps us with that,” Sham added.
For Aquanow to stay competitive, it has to be able to quickly deploy infrastructure, manage resources well, and minimize downtime, the startup can meet market demand while keeping its costs low.
Sham explained that using AWS frees the company to focus on growth rather than getting overwhelmed. He said AWS provides containerized services and cloud tools that make it easier for the company to deploy, manage, and grow their infrastructure.
“AWS saves a lot of headaches on the infrastructure and the system side, because there are a lot of the out-of-the-box solutions that give us very high scalability to begin with,” Leung added.
“Our team would have to be twice the size without AWS. They really help us scale without adding unnecessary complexity.”
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Feature Image courtesy BetaKit / Matthew Henry via Unsplash.