# Clarisse Hagège

> Clarisse Hagège is a French fintech founder and former investment banker who co-founded DFNS to make blockchain infrastructure usable by banks, fintechs, and other institutions. After roles spanning Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, and Crédit Agricole CIB, she left banking in 2019, assembled a cryptography-heavy founding team, and chose to delay DFNS's launch while it built its own security layer. She now leads DFNS as CEO and serves as president of the MPC Alliance, with her work centered on programmable wallets, institutional controls, stablecoin payments, and the convergence of traditional and onchain finance.

- **Role:** Founder and CEO at DFNS
- **Organizations:** DFNS, MPC Alliance, Techstars, STATION F, Global Digital Finance, Crédit Agricole CIB, Merrill Lynch, Goldman Sachs
- **From:** Nogent-sur-Marne, France
- **Nationality:** French
- **Education:** One-year graduate exchange program, New York University Graduate School of Arts and Science, Master II in Finance and International Business, Sciences Po, Master's studies in Applied Economics and Political Science, Université Paris Dauphine - PSL, Double degree in Geopolitics and History, Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, Hypokhâgne-Khâgne preparatory program in arts and literature, Lycée Marcelin Berthelot
- **Known for:** Co-founded DFNS and grew it into infrastructure used by hundreds of fintechs and institutions., Won VivaTech's 2021 Female Founder Challenge., Led DFNS through a $16 million Series A announced in January 2025.

## Career timeline

- **2009** — Worked as a summer analyst in global investment research at Goldman Sachs.
- **2010** — Interned in global wealth management at Merrill Lynch.
- **2011-2013** — Served as a business analyst supporting the CEO and senior management of Crédit Agricole CIB in the Americas.
- **2013-2017** — Held corporate and multinational coverage banking roles at Crédit Agricole CIB.
- **2017-2020** — Worked as a Global Relationship Manager at Crédit Agricole CIB.
- **2019** — Resigned from banking after concluding that application-ready blockchain infrastructure was missing and began building DFNS.
- **2020** — Co-founded and incorporated DFNS; also contributed to Global Digital Finance's Custody Working Group.
- **2021** — Won VivaTech's Female Founder Challenge and joined Techstars as an entrepreneur-in-residence.
- **2022** — DFNS announced a €12.5 million funding round to expand its team and product.
- **2025** — DFNS closed a $16 million Series A led by Further Ventures; Hagège became president of the MPC Alliance.
- **2026** — DFNS repositioned from wallet infrastructure to a core banking platform for digital assets.

## Achievements

- Co-founded DFNS and grew it into infrastructure used by hundreds of fintechs and institutions.
- Won VivaTech's 2021 Female Founder Challenge.
- Led DFNS through a $16 million Series A announced in January 2025.
- Became president of the MPC Alliance in 2025.
- Helped define DFNS's strategy of building an in-house multi-party computation security layer rather than licensing a third-party library.
- Built a career spanning investment research, wealth management, corporate banking, fintech, and cryptographic infrastructure.

## Latest updates

- **2026-07** — DFNS announced integrations with Wyden and Equisafe, extending its core banking platform into institutional trading, settlement, and tokenized-asset workflows.
- **2026-06** — DFNS repositioned itself from wallet infrastructure to a core banking platform for digital assets; Hagège also announced Capa as a customer for cross-border stablecoin payments in Latin America.
- **2026-04** — DFNS introduced encrypted transactions for Ethereum and EVM-compatible networks using ERC-7984 and Zama's fully homomorphic encryption technology.
- **2025-09** — Hagège appeared on Notabene's Stack Chats to discuss institutional stablecoin payment infrastructure, privacy, and the need to translate blockchain capabilities into familiar financial workflows.
- **2025-02** — Hagège became president of the MPC Alliance and outlined plans for renewed governance, technical repositories, standards work, and an MPC certification program.
- **2025-01** — DFNS announced a $16 million Series A led by Further Ventures, with participation from new and existing backers.

## Links

- Website: https://dfns.co/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/clarissehagege/
- Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/clarisse_hagege
- Facebook: https://facebook.com/dfnscustody/

---

Profile page: https://yespress.io/clarisse-hagege
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-08-27