Cryptocurrency financial services provider BlockFi Inc. raised $350m taking its valuation to more than $3bn.
The Series D funding round was led by Bain Capital Ventures, partners of DST Global, Pomp Investments and Tiger Global with participation from Susquehanna Government Products, LLLP, Bracket Capital, Paradigm, Valar Ventures, Morgan Creek Digital, Akuna Capital, PJC, Hudson River Trading, ParaFi Capital and Jump Capital among others.
The company intends to use the funds to develop its product suite, accelerate expansion into new markets globally and provide capital for acquisition opportunities.
The funding follows three prior rounds of $100m in total across its seed and Series C rounds. The latest financing brings its total equity raised since its inception to about $450m.
Founded in 2017 by Zac Prince and Flori Marquez, the firm aims to bridge the gap between cryptocurrencies and traditional financial and wealth management products. Offering a host of financial products, the company enables users to build and manage wealth through digital asset investments.
Currently, the firm enables users to earn a yield on digital assets, buy and sell digital assets as well as get US dollar loans secured by the value of digital assets via its platform. It also launched a bitcoin rewards credit card to capitalise on the growing popularity of the asset.
The company’s growth has gone from strength to strength over the last year. BlockFi has over 260,000 funded retail accounts up from 100,000 at the end of 2020. To add on, the firm’s monthly revenue currently exceeded $50m with the platform boasting of more than $15bn in assets.
Commenting on the future of digital assets, Bain Capital Ventures partner Stefan Cohen said, “We are in the early innings of retail and institutional crypto adoption; as demand grows, we see an enormous opportunity for crypto companies to offer a suite of sophisticated, scalable financial services to engage and empower clients.
“BlockFi has solidified itself as a category winner built on superior products, a world-class team, and a brand of trust and reliability for investors and borrowers. We couldn’t be more thrilled to partner with the company to accelerate its growth globally and seize one of the most important opportunities of our time in shaping the future of finance.”
The funding comes at a time when the cryptocurrency sector achieved a market cap of more than $1.73tn, surpassing the entire GDP of Canada after the latest surge in Bitcoin, Ethereum and DeFi tokens this bull season.
Given that the price of Bitcoin rose by 600% over the past year, the demand for cryptocurrencies related products and services has escalated with traditional financial companies being lured to start offering crypto services. As a result, the industry is ripe for innovation, the firm said.
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