Third Bank Invests in Fireblocks Making It a Double Unicorn
Digital asset security and asset transfer platform Fireblocks said it has “solidified” its unicorn status after raising USD 310m in Series D funding, boosting its valuation to USD 2bn.
The round was co-led by Sequoia Capital, Stripes, Spark Capital, Coatue, DRW VC, and SCB 10X, the venture arm of Siam Commercial Bank, one of Thailand’s biggest commercial banks.
This investment also “marks the third global bank to invest in Fireblocks” alongside The Bank of New York Mellon (BNY Mellon) and SVB Capital.
The round follows the USD 133m raised in March in Series C funding led by Coatue, Ribbit, and Stripes, with strategic investment from BNY Mellon and SVB.
The company’s plans include ongoing strategic expansion alongside the growth of the digital asset industry, as well as scaling all business lines, adding more customers and partners.
And speaking of the crypto growth, Ravi Gupta, Partner at Sequoia Capital is quoted as saying that, as crypto becomes more important, secure storage and transfer of digital assets will be core to all companies that handle digital assets, including crypto-native companies, fintech companies, neobanks, as well as traditional financial institutions.
Fireblocks says it promotes the expansion of digital asset use cases beyond bitcoin (BTC) and into payments, gaming, non-fungible tokens (NFTs), and digital securities. It enables businesses to become digital asset businesses, while its technology can be white-labeled for crypto custody solutions, allowing financial institutions to implement direct custody without relying on third parties.
According to Mukaya (Tai) Panich, Chief Venture and Investment Officer, SCB 10X, Fireblocks allows large and small institutions to offer “their customers’ custom custody solutions instead of outsourcing critical capabilities,” adding that “as Thailand’s largest bank, we are looking forward to bringing Fireblocks’ solutions to future users in Southeast Asia.”
The company claims that its infrastructure has been adopted by over 500 institutions, and it supports a number of large banks and crypto-native exchanges, lending desks, hedge funds, over-the-counter desks, and market makers. These include Revolut, BlockFi, Celsius, PrimeTrust, Galaxy Digital, Genesis Trading, Crypto.com, eToro, etc.
It says it is securing more than USD 1trn in digital assets.
Since its 2019 launch, Fireblocks has raised a cumulative total of USD 489m from a number of global VCs in the fintech, blockchain and cybersecurity space including Cyberstarts, Eight Roads, Tenaya Capital, Swisscom, Paradigm, Ribbit Capital, and Coatue.
In February, they and First announced a wallet and infrastructure for financial institutions to connect to the Diem network to facilitate transactions.
Meanwhile, in June, decentralized finance (DeFi) company and major ethereum (ETH) staking pool StakeHound accused this heavily-backed crypto custodian of losing ETH 38,178 (currently USD 84.9m), which Fireblocks denied.
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