Ben Fox, cofounder and CIO of Members Capital Management, has built a career at the intersection of science and capital markets. Now he’s adding a new pillar: digital infrastructure.
Read our interview with Fox, first published in issue 5 of Capital Pioneer magazine:
Q: You’ve worked across analytics, insurance and at one of the world’s largest pension funds. Why launch a digital-first reinsurance manager now?
Because the timing is finally right. Two secular shifts are converging: the mainstreaming of digital assets and the surge in demand for private alternatives among high-net-worth investors. For example, a year ago, crypto was still treated as fringe. Today, Bitcoin sits on the same CNBC ticker banner as the S&P. Almost every business story is crypto-adjacent.
At the same time, smaller investors want access to the same uncorrelated return streams that institutions have enjoyed for years. Reinsurance has always been part of the “gold standard” institutional portfolio. There’s no reason it should stay locked behind $50m minimum tickets and legacy fund structures.
Q: What does “digital-first” mean in practice for Members Capital?
It means we’re building the capital side of the business on modern rails, which enables investors to access the diversified and uncorrelated returns of the global reinsurance markets in a digital-native format. Traditional ILS managers focus almost exclusively on large institutional cheques. We’re deliberately opening the aperture.
Digital infrastructure lets us do three things: Tokenise exposure so investors can hold reinsurance risk in a form that’s native to their portfolios; Lower minimums dramatically — you can’t take a $50k cheque from a family office through a traditional ILS fund, but you can through a digital platform; Plug into distribution channels that didn’t exist five years ago.
We’re using digital tools to solve a structural access problem.
Q: How significant was the London Stock Exchange partnership in September?
Huge. Through the LSEG’s Digital Markets Infrastructure initiative, we executed the first tokenised reinsurance trade on their platform. That put us in their press release, then in the FT, and then opening the market with our logo on every screen.
The real significance is credibility. It showed both sides of our ecosystem — reinsurance professionals and digital-asset investors — that this isn’t a gimmick. It’s regulated infrastructure, backed by a major exchange group, being used for a real-world asset with real-world cashflows.
Q: How does that digital infrastructure translate into capital raising?
Distribution. Our partnership with Archax is a perfect example. Two weeks ago, a $50k ticket came in through the platform. We didn’t pitch for it. We didn’t run a roadshow. Someone saw the product, understood it, and allocated. That’s the power of digital rails. They make reinsurance investable for people who would never meet an ILS manager in a boardroom.
We’re working with other digital distribution partners, because we want to be where the capital already is, not where it used to be.
We aim to reassure the traditional market by pairing digital innovation with institutional-grade partners. Hannover Re fronts our business. That means brokers and cedants face the creditworthiness of the third-largest reinsurer in the world, not a startup. It removes the “who are you and what is this?” question instantly.
When we brought reinsurance brokers and digital-asset investors together at the LSEG event, you could see the understanding on both sides. This is serious capital meeting a serious market — just through a new channel.
Q: Where does Members Capital go next?
AUM today is under $25m. The target is to reach around $100m in the next six to nine months. Plenty of established ILS funds run with less. The ambition is to prove that digital-native capital can sit alongside institutional capital — not as a novelty, but as a permanent part of the reinsurance ecosystem.
