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Anchorage Digital, a leading crypto storage firm, has netted $350.00 million (£264.02 million) in its Series D funding round. A report revealed this news earlier today, noting that the series D funding round has brought the company’s total valuation to $3.00 billion (£2.26 billion). Reportedly, the financing round included renowned investors, such as management firm KKR, Goldman Sachs, Andreessen Horowitz, Apollo credit funds.
According to the report, the investors in the Series D funding round will get an equity stake in the company, which received a banking charter from the Office of the Comptroller (OCC) in January 2021. KKR, which invested in Anchorage through its Next Generation Technology Growth Fund II, said this marks its first direct equity investment in a digital asset company.
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Explaining the decision to offer investors an equity stake, Anchorage president and co-founder Diogo Mónica said,
We wanted to make sure that all these big investment names are in our corner because Anchorage is expanding really heavily toward larger financial institutions.
With the obtained funds, Anchorage aims to enhance its infrastructure solutions. Specifically, the firm seeks to improve solutions that target global financial companies and financial tech innovators.
Mónica added that Anchorage also intends to use the funds to finance its international expansion, ensuring that the company has regulated banking charters in other jurisdictions across the globe.
Banks will start offering crypto in 2022
In a subsequent interview, Mónica predicted that more banks would start offering crypto services and products in the coming year. She pointed out that financial institutions started building crypto-related products in 2020, and such offerings will enter the market between mid-2022 and late-2022.
Should this prediction come to pass, Anchorage stands to grow immensely. The company has been leveraging the banking charter is secured from the OCC to win contracts with traditional finance players that are dabbling in the crypto. While such agreements started as custody deals, with Anchorage being the custodian, they have evolved to include services like staking.
Per Mónica, custody service currently generates less than 50% of Anchorage’s revenue. However, the company has expanded the range of assets it holds for its clients to include non-fungible tokens (NFTs). At the moment, Anchorage holds several CryptoPunks for Visa and other customers. On top of this, the firm has expanded its customer base to include government agencies like FDIC and US Marshalls.
Despite this rapid growth, Anchorage has no plans of going public like Coinbase and Robinhood. According to Mónica, the firm’s balance sheet is in good shape, seeing as it still holds the $80.00 million (£60.35 million) it raised in its Series C funding round in February.
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