Legal Counsel

Portofino Technologies is a start-up building high-frequency trading (HFT) grade technology for digital assets.

Today, Portofino provides liquidity on the largest centralised and decentralised cryptocurrency exchanges and provides services to institutions and Web3 projects that require digital asset liquidity.

Since our establishment in 2021, we have been building market-leading HFT technology to deploy our liquidity provisioning algorithms. Our competitive advantage is our superior proprietary technology that leverages advanced machine learning and stochastic control techniques to provide our clients and partners with the best pricing in the market.

We are backed by some of the largest VCs in the world, Valar Ventures, Coatue, and Global Founders Capital. Our vision is to scale our technology across the full crypto infrastructure value chain.

Summary

We are looking for a lawyer with 2-5 years’ PQE to join our legal team in London. This position will report into our Head of Legal and Compliance and will cover the full range of legal and regulatory matters affecting the company. As an early member of a startup legal team you will need to be willing and able to roll up your sleeves and get involved. You will be excited about adapting traditional legal concepts to the innovative and fast moving blockchain world.

Responsibilities

• Collaborate with and provide legal advice and support to operations, finance and technology teams
• Assist in preparing regulatory licence applications for multiple jurisdictions
• Draft and negotiate heads of terms and contracts, including those relating to trading, borrowing, investing, liquidity provision and supplier services
• Assist our operations team in onboarding new clients and conducting client risk assessments and related KYC/AML tasks
• Advise on other legal issues, including those relating to employment and incentives, intellectual property and data privacy
• Manage external counsel in delivering project-specific legal advice

Your profile

• Qualified to practice law in the UK, Europe, the US or an equivalent jurisdiction
• 2-5 years’ PQE with experience advising financial institutions (either from private practice or in-house) strongly preferred
• Experience in one or more of the following areas would be an advantage: financial services and markets regulation, financial crime compliance, securities/FX trading and brokerage, or venture capital investing
• A strong interest in blockchain and crypto assets technology and the ability to gain a quick understanding of products and use cases in this sector
• Passionate about breaking down complex legal issues into actionable business guidance
• Proactive, self-motivated and driven to maximise your impact
• Excellent communication skills with the ability to build and develop relationships across the business, building partnerships with people and teams
• Comfortable with sharing learnings widely, including when things haven’t worked as planned
• Keen to build and develop your legal expertise and wider industry knowledge
• Fluent in written and spoken English

If interested apply directly or contact us at recruiting@portofino.tech

We look forward to your application.

Disclaimer for recruitment agencies: Portofino Technologies does not accept unsolicited CVs or applications from recruiters or employment agencies in response to our career portal or our social media posts. Portofino Technologies will not agree to payment of any compensation or referral fee relating to these applications. Portofino Technologies reserves the right to hire these candidate(s) without any financial obligation towards the recruiter or agency. Any unsolicited CVs, including those submitted to hiring managers or any other Portofino employee, will be considered as property of Portofino Technologies.