Anchorage Digital, a digital asset platform built for financial institutions, has announced that it has secured $350 million in investments from its Series D funding round.The series was led by KRR, a global investment firm with over $30 billion in assets under management. Other notable investors include Andreessen Horowitz, Bitmain, Goldman Sachs, Fidelity Investments, Alameda Research, Apollo (via credit funds), BlackRock (via funds and accounts), Blockchain Capital, Delta Blockchain Fund, Elad Gil, GIC, GoldenTree Asset Management, Innovius Capital, Kraken, Lux Capital, PayPal Ventures, Senator Investment Group, Standard Investments, Thoma Bravo, and Wellington Management.
“As more and more institutions look to add crypto services into their offerings, we find ourselves at an inflection point,” shares Anchorage co-founder and president Diogo Mónica. “This funding positions Anchorage Digital to meet the unprecedented institutional demand for this rapidly evolving market.” he adds.
According to the firm’s official press release, the investments will be used to develop and design new features for its custodial product suite, enabling major banks to securely store their cryptocurrency holdings. With the funding, the crypto startup now ranks among the highest-valued firms in the entire crypto industry, with a projected valuation worth $3 billion. Other digital asset custody firms close to the valuation include Fireblocks with $2 billion, and Copper Eyes, with $2.5 billion.
“Institutions began to build products in 2020 that will come to market in mid-to-late 2022,” says Monica, highlighting a prevalence among modern banks to pivot into crypto offerings.
Notably, Anchorage Digital is the first crypto-native company to receive a banking charter from the U.S. Office of the Comptroller (OCC) as 2021 began. Anchorage Digital’s prospects include “safe and accessible” access to digital assets for institutions, in a space that’s facing rapid acceleration due to the opportunities presented by blockchain technology. The firm will offer integrations for institutions, with services such as secure trading, financing, staking, and governance all natively accessible through its platform.
“As a pioneer in enabling institutional investors to access digital assets, Anchorage has built a best in class, institutional grade digital asset platform that combines the best practices of both modern security and usability,” shares Ben Pederson, Senior Leader on KKR’s Technology Growth Equity team.
Internally, Anchorage has been witnessing a shift, though, from purely custodial services to staking and lending, in much the same way the decentralized finance has accelerated over the year. According to Mónica, custodial services now only account for less than half their firm’s current revenues.
The executive also says that they are looking forward to provide DeFi-based yield offerings, as demand arises from banks and financial instutions. NFTs have also been beneficial to the firm, with its concurrent partnerships with companies like Visa, which owns a piece of Crypto Punks (Cryptopunk #7610) held in Anchorage’s custody.
Alongside these private clients, Anchorage has also begun servicing government agencies across the globe. The firm, however, says that it has no foreseeable ambitions of going public.
Disclaimer: This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.
