A&O Shearman's Fuse Incubator Shifts Focus to Digital Asset Infrastructure

A&O Shearman selected 18 companies for its tenth Fuse cohort, splitting the program between digital asset infrastructure and legal technology for the first time. The cohort, announced July 8, marks a strategic pivot: nine slots went to blockchain settlement, tokenization, and payment providers nominated by clients, including Barclays, Citi, Coinbase, and J.P. Morgan. The remaining nine went to legal tech startups chosen from 315 applications across 53 countries.

Fuse launched in 2017 as a pure legal tech accelerator and has backed nearly 100 companies across disputes workflow, cybersecurity, and AI risk insurance. The digital assets track represents the firm's most explicit bet yet on institutional blockchain adoption. Client-nominated companies include Fnality, which operates a DLT-based wholesale payment system using central bank reserves, and LayerZero, whose interoperability protocol supports 70% of global stablecoin supply. Others focus on tokenized credit infrastructure, cross-border FX settlement, and regulated sterling payment rails. The legal tech track addresses narrower operational gaps: AI-powered citation checking, redaction automation, side letter management for funds lawyers, and regulatory obligation tracking across jurisdictions.