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Millicent
Techstars '24London, GB · Founded 2020 · 8 employees on LinkedIn · 1 known investors
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London fintech building a hybrid layer-1 distributed ledger network for digital currencies, payments and cross-border FX.
Also known as Millicent Labs
Investors · 1
How we know: the Techstars portfolio · open dataset · Top 3000 Accelerator Startups (no YC) 2026-08 · Not right? Tell us
Company profile
researched Sep 2026Millicent (also referred to as Millicent Labs) is a London-based fintech company working on distributed ledger technology, tokenization and digital finance, with a stated focus on financial inclusion. Its core product is a hybrid Layer-1 distributed ledger network intended to provide payments infrastructure for global finance, using parallel transaction processing to support a throughput described as over 10,000 transactions per second at a fraction of a cent per transaction. The network is designed to be public-permissioned with community governance, open to third-party developers, and interoperable with both other blockchains and legacy banking rails, and it issues regulatory-compliant stablecoins that can move across ecosystems and borders.
A central element of Millicent's work is the Full-Reserve Digital Currency (FRDC): a privately issued digital currency pegged to a fiat currency and fully collateralized by liquid cash deposits held in a ringfenced account safeguarded by a regulated third party directly at the central bank. The company distinguishes FRDC from central bank digital currencies and from fractionally backed stablecoins. In 2022 Millicent ran a sandboxed demonstration for Innovate UK covering fiat on-ramping via Faster Payments from a large UK consumer bank, on-chain minting of GBP-pegged FRDC tokens, and payment scenarios including micropayments, QR-code tipping and higher-value peer-to-peer transfers via mobile app, custodial wallet and non-custodial wallet.
Millicent also developed LOFTHub (Liquidity Optimizing Forex Transaction Hub), a hybrid decentralized currency exchange for emerging market and developing economy (EMDE) currencies. LOFTHub combines the liquidity provisioning model of an automated market maker with the execution functionality of a conventional limit order book to temper price volatility and slippage, and uses a hub-and-spoke model interlinking independent sovereign currency issuance chains, with multi-pool routing enabling exchange of currency pairs without established trading corridors. Interoperability is implemented using the Cosmos Inter-Blockchain Communication (IBC) protocol.
Founding story
Millicent was co-founded by Stella Dyer, a Harvard Business School alumna who arrived in the UK as a child war refugee and previously worked at Morgan Stanley, JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs, where she managed the Global High-tech Investment Banking Division, and by serial entrepreneur Kene Ezeji-Okoye. Financial inclusion is cited as the founding motivation.
Business model
Millicent operates as a technology provider building distributed ledger payments infrastructure and issuing regulatory-compliant, fully reserved digital currencies, with the network open to third-party developers who can build services, protocols and products on top of it. Development has been co-funded by the UK government's innovation agency.
Traction
Millicent received a UKRI Innovate UK SMART grant in 2021 and performed what it described as the world's first test of a retail Full-Reserve Digital Currency in a sandboxed technology demonstration for Innovate UK in July 2022. It participated in the BIS and Bank of England's Project Rosalind, is a member of the Allen & Overy Fuse innovation cohort, and won the FX and liquidity challenge of the BIS/RBI G20 TechSprint 2023 in Mumbai in September 2023.
Latest developments
In September 2023 Millicent Labs was named a winner of the BIS/RBI G20 TechSprint 2023 for LOFTHub, receiving its award from Reserve Bank of India Governor Shaktikanta Das at the finale in Mumbai, with judging institutions including the World Bank, the IMF, the Hong Kong Monetary Authority, the Bank of Thailand and the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance.
▸Full profile — market position, technology, go-to-market, geography, history
Market position
Positioned as an alternative to legacy payment systems such as Visa and Mastercard and as a bridge between distributed ledgers and existing banking rails. The company has participated in public-sector programmes including the BIS and Bank of England's Project Rosalind and was one of three winners of the BIS/RBI G20 TechSprint 2023 from twenty-one shortlisted teams.
Millicent frames its Full-Reserve Digital Currency as distinct from both central bank digital currencies and conventional stablecoins, being privately issued but 100% collateralized by liquid deposits held at the central bank through a regulated third party. LOFTHub differentiates from pure automated market makers by pairing AMM liquidity pools with order-book execution and multi-pool routing for currency pairs lacking established trading corridors.
Technology
A hybrid Layer-1 distributed ledger with parallel transaction processing supporting a stated throughput of more than 10,000 transactions per second, low transaction fees, smart contracts, and public-permissioned infrastructure with democratic community governance. The stack includes digital wallet and payment applications for iOS and Android with an API for integration with existing web and mobile platforms, GBP-pegged Full-Reserve Digital Currency tokens, and the LOFTHub exchange, which combines automated market maker liquidity pools with limit order book execution and uses Cosmos Inter-Blockchain Communication for cross-chain asset and data transfer.
Go-to-market
Everyday consumers and small and medium-sized businesses, including unbanked and underbanked populations, alongside third-party developers; LOFTHub is aimed at both professional and retail participants in cross-border payments and FX in emerging market and developing economy currencies.
Geography
Headquartered in London, United Kingdom, with work oriented toward cross-border payments and emerging market and developing economy currencies; the G20 TechSprint finale was held in Mumbai, India.
History
The company received UK Research and Innovation (Innovate UK SMART) grant funding in June 2021 to develop its digital finance network, and also raised an angel round. In July 2022 it announced a sandboxed demonstration of a retail Full-Reserve Digital Currency for Innovate UK. It went on to participate in the BIS and Bank of England's Project Rosalind, join the Allen & Overy Fuse cohort, and win the BIS/RBI G20 TechSprint 2023 in September 2023.
Compiled by commissioned research from 5 cited public sources — announcements, filings, and press listed under research sources below.
Key figures
latest reportedCompany-reported or press-reported figures, each dated to when it was claimed — not independently audited.
Timeline · 4
launches, deals, and filingsMillicent Labs won the FX and liquidity technology challenge of the G20 TechSprint 2023, run by the Bank for International Settlements and the Reserve Bank of India, for LOFTHub. Twenty-one shortlisted teams competed and three won; the award was presented by RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das at the finale in Mumbai.
Millicent announced it had performed a sandboxed technology demonstration for Innovate UK of a general-purpose, retail Full-Reserve Digital Currency, simulating fiat on-ramping via Faster Payments from a large UK consumer bank, minting of GBP-pegged FRDC tokens, micropayments, QR-code tipping and peer-to-peer payments across mobile app, custodial and non-custodial wallets.
Coverage states Millicent raised additional funding through a brief angel round to build its global payments infrastructure; no amount was disclosed.
Millicent received a grant from UK Research and Innovation's Innovate UK SMART programme to develop its digital finance network and next-generation distributed technologies; the project is co-funded by the UK government's innovation agency.
Dated company events from announcements, filings, and press; legal rows summarize public dockets and regulator releases.
In the news
▸Research sources · 5
primary sources listed
- Two Fuse companies win Reserve Bank of India and Bank for International Settlements G20 TechSprint 2023aoshearman.com · web
5 public sources were cited for this profile; the first-party ones are listed here.
Frequently asked questions
- What does Millicent do?
- London fintech building a hybrid layer-1 distributed ledger network for digital currencies, payments and cross-border FX.
- Who are Millicent's investors?
- Millicent's investors include Techstars.
- Where is Millicent headquartered?
- Millicent is headquartered in London, GB.