Real metals. Real custody. Reserved for those who know the difference.
Kilo Reserve provides direct, physically backed beneficial ownership in hard assets for qualified investors. You hold beneficial ownership in your metals from the date of settlement, executed through our institutional metals desk and held in institutional custody. These are the tangible resources that power electrification, infrastructure, defense, and the digital economy.
Part of the Kilo Group
Kilo Reserve LLC is a Kilo Capital Corp company. Kilo Capital Corp was founded in 2017 to provide institutional-grade commodity inventory finance, hedging, and supply services to mid-market and commercial companies in North America. Kilo Capital operates across precious metals, base and specialty metals, food and agriculture, and energy and petrochemicals. In 2019, Kilo Capital launched the Kilo Hedged Commodity Credit Fund for institutional investors. The fund is closed to new investors.
Kilo Capital has financed and structured transactions across the global physical metals markets since founding, the same markets Kilo Reserve makes accessible to direct investors today.
The Kilo group also includes Kilo Royalty Corp, a royalty and income business that acquires royalties, streams, and structured financings across the above-ground commodity supply chain, spanning metals, energy, food, agriculture, and chemicals. Kilo Royalty generates high-yielding commodity income without geological or extraction risk, with a focus on North America and high-governance markets.
Kilo Reserve brings physically backed beneficial ownership in investment-grade industrial metals to qualified investors within that established institutional framework.
Why We Built Kilo Reserve
Over years of working daily in physical metals markets — sourcing, financing, and structuring transactions across the global metals complex — a clear gap became apparent. The same institutional access to hard assets that Kilo Capital provides to its commercial clients was simply unavailable to individual investors. There was no physically backed, audited, direct-ownership product structured to institutional standards. Kilo Reserve was built to close that gap. We bring the custody, sourcing, and execution standards Kilo Capital has used with commercial counterparties since 2017 to qualified individual investors, family offices, and registered investment advisors.
The name Kilo Reserve reflects our roots: Kilo from Kilo Capital Corp, our parent company; the kilogram, the standard unit of weight in global commodity markets; and reserve, assets held, preserved, and owned directly. It is a name built from the language of the markets we work in every day.
We exist to give serious investors direct access to the same quality of metal and custody used by institutional counterparties.
In a world dominated by digital abstractions and paper claims, we provide direct, audited ownership of high-purity copper and industrial metals stored in institutional-grade vaults.
What Makes Kilo Reserve Different
Backed by Real Assets
Every Kilo Reserve holding represents beneficial ownership of investment-grade physical metal, not fund units, derivatives, or counterparty promises. Holdings are independently verified.
Secure and Efficient Storage
Your metals are held in a secure, shared vault. We manage this pooled inventory to ensure your holdings are always available and fully matched with physical metal, providing institutional-grade vault storage for secure metal investing.
Independent Audit Process
We use independent third-party auditors to verify our inventory, ensuring transparency and custody integrity for copper investors.
Built for Serious Investors
We serve individuals and institutions who understand the value of real assets and demand a secure, long-term approach.
Led by Industry Experts
Our leadership team brings decades of institutional commodity market experience. Full bios below.
Concierge Execution and Reporting
Fund your account easily via wire transfer. Concierge support available for all clients.
Direct Ownership, Not Paper Exposure
ETFs hold metal at the fund level; futures involve roll costs and counterparty exposure. Kilo Reserve clients hold beneficial ownership in physical metal through institutional custody structures — held in the client's name or as a tracked allocation within pooled institutional storage, depending on the custody arrangement.
Multi-Metal Capability
Few firms offer integrated access to copper, aluminum, and specialty industrial metals through a single relationship. Kilo Reserve consolidates sourcing, custody, and reporting across the industrial metals complex into one institutional channel.
What Kilo Reserve Is Not
Kilo Reserve is not a bank, broker-dealer, ETF issuer, retail bullion dealer, or digital token issuer. We are an institutional metals firm providing physically backed beneficial ownership of investment-grade industrial metals for qualified investors.
Our Promise
Our Principles
Kilo Reserve is led by seasoned professionals with deep expertise in financial strategy, institutional banking, and global metals markets.
Our leadership combines operational discipline with long-term vision—delivering secure, transparent access to industrial metals and real asset ownership.
Allen Cates
Co-Founder, CEO & President
Allen Cates is Co-Founder & CEO of Kilo Reserve. Allen brings more than two decades of institutional financial experience to the firm, including senior roles at Bank of America and PNC Bank where he led complex pricing, trading, and strategy initiatives across multi-billion-dollar portfolios. His work integrated analytics, risk management, and business planning at institutional scale.
Following his corporate career, Allen acquired and operated a multi-location accessibility franchise, building operational and customer strategy expertise at the frontline level. Allen founded Kilo Reserve recognizing a gap in the marketplace: in an inflationary environment, sophisticated investors needed institutional-grade access to physical metals with the sourcing relationships, custody expertise, and execution capabilities that were previously only available to commercial counterparties. He founded the firm on the conviction that physically backed beneficial ownership in investment-grade metals should be accessible to serious investors, backed by institutional-grade custody and executed by experienced professionals. He holds an MBA from Manchester Business School, UK.
Wade Brennan
Co-Founder & Partner
Wade Brennan brings over 20 years of experience in metals trading, commodity finance, and institutional relationship management to Kilo Reserve. As CEO of Kilo Capital, he leads trading, credit structuring, and supply chain partnerships across global metals markets.
Previously, Wade served in senior leadership at Scotia Mocatta, the metals division of Scotiabank and one of the world’s most respected names in physical precious and base metals, where he was Head of Precious Metals Sales for the EMEA region. That role gave him direct, hands-on experience with the European metals trading infrastructure, including the Rotterdam market, that underpins Kilo Reserve’s primary storage strategy today. His career has spanned physical trading, corporate finance, and risk structuring across North America and Europe.
Wade brings strategic oversight, deep market relationships, and institutional credibility to Kilo Reserve.
Pieter Van Schaick
CFO and Head of Risk
Pieter Van Schaick is Chief Financial Officer and Chief Risk Officer of Kilo Capital and Kilo Reserve. His prior roles included co-head of Risk Assessment Management at the Bank of Nova Scotia, one of the world’s leading commodity banking institutions, and joint head of the bank’s asset recovery group, where he managed the restructuring of some of the largest defaulted corporate credits at the time. Pieter’s Scotia background means Kilo Reserve’s risk and credit framework is built to institutional banking standards.
Rob Snyder
COO
In his role as COO, Rob is responsible for many of the daily operations and strategic initiatives at Kilo Reserve. Rob leverages his extensive background in structured products, corporate lending, and risk management to conduct due diligence and assist in deal structuring.
Rob has spent his career in credit research and risk management and has helped build and operate multiple credit platforms. His track record includes helping to establish and manage a private credit strategy offering structured finance solutions to early-stage companies at Catalio Capital, launching and managing a short-duration credit strategy at Brown Advisory, where he was also on the risk committee, and 14 years in New York, where he helped build out and manage investments at two different CLO start-ups.
Kyle McErlean
Trader
In his role as Trader, Kyle assists customers with their trading and supply needs. He also takes an active role in business development and customer support, and shares responsibility for hedging Kilo Reserve’s commodity exposure.
Kyle started his career at Verity in institutional sales after completing a Bachelor’s degree in Economics at Indiana University of Pennsylvania. Since joining Kilo Capital as a Junior Trader in the summer of 2021, he has specialized in both physical commodities and derivatives markets, focusing on trade execution and risk management.
Who We Work With
Kilo Reserve serves family office principals, private wealth clients, retired founders, and institutional investors who understand the value of physically backed beneficial ownership over paper alternatives. Our clients typically hold diversified portfolios including equities, real estate, precious metals, and private investments, and are adding industrial metals as a non-correlated, inflation-resistant position. If that describes your situation, we would like to speak with you.
Institutional custody is our foundation.
Kilo Reserve can source a broad range of investment-grade industrial metals for qualified investors through Kilo Capital’s institutional commodity network. Core products — copper cathode and industrial-grade aluminum — are available immediately. Specialty industrial metals including iridium, ruthenium, tungsten, and rhodium are sourced on request, with other industrial metals available subject to market conditions and lot sizes. Custody structures are confirmed at execution and discussed with the trade desk based on the metal, allocation size, and operational requirements.