Paribu Acquires Decentralized Smart Wallet Clave to Expand DeFi Ecosystem

Turkish cryptocurrency platform Paribu has acquired key assets of London-based decentralized smart wallet startup Clave, moving to deepen its presence in decentralized finance (DeFi), tokenization, and on-chain financial services.

The acquisition brings Clave’s team and technology under Paribu, which plans to expand both retail and institutional product offerings. Paribu already operates Paribu Self, a multi-party computation (MPC) powered wallet for self-custody solutions. With Clave, the company aims to accelerate its roadmap around DeFi, stablecoins, and tokenized assets.

About Clave

Clave was founded in London by Baki Er, Rafi Ersözlü, and Ulaş Erdoğan. It is a self-custody smart wallet that uses Account Abstraction and passkey authentication to solve the seed phrase problem and simplify DeFi access. Users can store crypto, make payments, stake Ethereum, earn passive income via stablecoins, and spend at over 200 million Visa merchants globally. Clave competes with wallets such as MetaMask, Phantom, and Trust Wallet.

In February 2024, Clave raised $1.6 million in a pre-seed round led by Matter Labs (developer of zkSync), with participation from Safe Foundation, Lambda Class, Mirana Ventures, and angel investors. Within its first year, the startup surpassed $10 million in total value locked (TVL) and attracted over 20,000 users.

Strategic Fit and Quotes

Paribu founder and CEO Yasin Oral said the acquisition accelerates the company’s on-chain innovation strategy, noting Clave gained global recognition by addressing key usability challenges. “Integrating the Clave team and their expertise with Paribu’s scale will unlock more on-chain opportunities for end users,” Oral said.

Clave co-founder and CEO Baki Er added that joining Paribu will accelerate growth. “Paribu’s regional leadership, regulatory foundation, and financial strength will allow Clave to scale much faster,” he said. “Becoming part of the Paribu ecosystem marks a new phase in our mission to bring decentralized finance to mainstream users.”

Part of Broader Expansion

The Clave acquisition follows Paribu’s December 2025 purchase of CoinMENA, a regional crypto exchange in the MENA region, in a deal valued at up to $240 million — reportedly the largest fintech acquisition in Turkey. That deal gave Paribu licensed access in Bahrain and Dubai. With Clave, Paribu now intends to build an integrated on-chain ecosystem for DeFi, staking, global payments, and stablecoin services.