Blockchain.com said the institutional backing will power an increasingly institutional-minded business.
Tag: Funding Rounds
Japan’s SBI Investing ‘Eight-Figure’ Sum in Swiss Crypto Bank Sygnum
SBI Holdings, a Japanese financial services firm, is to lead an ongoing strategic fundraising round for Swiss digital asset bank Sygnum.
Sygnum, which holds a Swiss banking license, said Tuesday it has secured an “eight-figure” U.S. dollar investment from SBI’s subsidiary, SBI Digital Asset Holdings, which will be used to help the firm grow its client base and expand into new markets across Europe and Asia.
The firm, which has bases in Switzerland and Singapore, said the fundraising effort will have brought in investment of around $30 million over the past six months, helping the firm grow its assets under administration, which stood at over $500 million as of January 2021.
Coming as the company prepares for a possible public offering, the capital raised will also go toward increasing Sygnum’s range of custody offerings, commercializing its tokenization platform and secondary market trading facility, as well as expanding its open banking API infrastructure.
“With this strong start to 2021, we look forward to working with our stakeholders to continue innovating new solutions, launching new products, and ultimately providing our clients the ability to participate in the fast-growing digital assets opportunity in a safe, convenient, and fully-regulated manner,” said Gerald Goh, the co-founder and CEO of Sygnum Singapore.
The two firms have had a business relationship since last October, when they launched a fund in Singapore focused on early-stage cryptocurrency investment opportunities.
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Payments Startup Celo Raises $20M From a16z, Electric Capital
Mobile-focused blockchain payments startup Celo has raised $20 million from the likes of Andreesen Horowitz (a16z), Greenfield One and Electric Capital.
According to a press release on Wednesday, the funding will go towards fleshing out its suite of offerings.
Celo is a proof-of-stake blockchain built on Ethereum, designed to support stablecoins and tokenized assets, while utilizing cellphone numbers to secure a user’s public keys.
To date, the startup says it has raised more than $65 million from high-profile industry backers including Polychain Capital, Reid Hoffman, Jack Dorsey, Coinbase Ventures, among others.
“We now have the technology to create a better financial system, a rich ecology of digital assets and products that allow individuals and organizations to … transact and manage risk,” said Celo co-founder Rene Reinsberg.
Since Celo’s initial development in 2017, the project has launched a mainnet, a native token (CELO), a stablecoin (cUSD), a mobile payments app and has been listed on major exchanges including Coinbase and Binance.
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Canadian Crypto Lender Ledn Raises $2.7M for Emerging Markets Expansion
Canadian cryptocurrency lender Ledn is aiming to do in other emerging markets what it did in Latin America, with funding and advice from a new set of global venture capitalists, the company announced Monday.
The lender has raised a $2.7 million second seed round led by White Star Capital with participation from Coinbase Ventures, Global Founders Capital, CMT Digital, Kingsway and Darrow Holdings, an affiliate of Susquehanna International Group.
Ledn has already developed Spanish descriptions of its service and cryptocurrency content, as well a Spanish-speaking support team, said co-founder and chief strategy officer Mauricio Di Bartolomeo.
The company also built its product set around what was popular in Latin America. Ledn’s stablecoin savings features and micro-loans as low as $500 are also popular in the region, Di Bartolomeo added.
“When we developed the products in LatAm, we realized that the average assets that each client would have were not going to be at the same level as they were in North America,” Di Bartolomeo said. “That’s not just limited to Latin America. That’s similar to a lot of emerging markets.”
The next step for the company is to expand into Africa, said Ledn CEO Adam Reeds.
Previously, the company had raised $1.55 million from Spark Power Group co-CEO Andrew Clark and Someren Capital in September 2018, which it used at the time to expand its lending operation in Canada.
The lender also recently engaged auditing firm Armanino LLP for a proof-of-reserves attestation.
Ledn gave Armanino a hash of the assets each client held on the platform as of Jan. 31 for the accounting firm to prove that the company’s assets outweighed its liabilities.
“We’re opening ourselves up for clients to open up their own reserves without exposing any client data,” Reeds said. “We’re encouraging others in the industry to do this as well.”
Ledn plans to perform a proof-of-reserves process on a semi-annual basis going forward.
Disclosure
Coinbase Joins $6M Funding Round for Licensed Middle-East Exchange Rain Financial
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Biconomy Raises $1.5M in Seed Funding for Bid to Simplify Blockchain Transactions
The leader in blockchain news, CoinDesk is a media outlet that strives for the highest journalistic standards and abides by a strict set of editorial policies. CoinDesk is an independent operating subsidiary of Digital Currency Group, which invests in cryptocurrencies and blockchain startups.
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Swiss Crypto Bank SEBA Raises $22.5M to Fuel Growth
The Swiss firm plans to expand into the Middle East and Asia and offer services for U.S. institutional clients.
Binance Labs Leads $12M Series B for Multi-Asset Wallet Developer MATH
NGC Ventures, Capital6 Eagle and Amber Group co-led the round.
American Express Invests in Institutional Trading Platform FalconX
FalconX announced Wednesday that American Express Ventures made the investment as an extension of a fundraise earlier this year, but did not disclose an amount.