Crypto custody bank Anchorage Digital has raised a $350 million Series D funding round, bringing its total valuation to over $3 billion.
Anchorage offers both a custody solution for big institutions, such as publicly traded companies, as well as the ability to trade crypto assets, stake assets to earn returns, and participate in protocol governance with the ownership of a certain amount of tokens.
One of its most notable transactions came when Visa acquired CryptoPunk for 49.5 ETH back in August. Anchorage was responsible for handling the transaction for Visa.
Notable Group of Investors
The Series D funding round was led by the global investment company KKR through its Next Generation Technology Growth Fund II. It is the company’s first direct equity investment in a crypto firm, and back in September, KKR took a stake in the flagship fund of ParaFi Capital, a crypto VC firm.
The list of investors was impressive and long in this new funding round. They included Goldman Sachs, BlackRock, PayPal Ventures, Andressen Horowitz, Alameda Research, Blockchain Capital, Delta Blockchain Fund, Elad Gil, GIC, Innovious Capital, GoldenTree Asset Management, Kraken, Lux Capital, Senator Investment Group, Standard Investments, Wellington Management, and Thoma Bravo.
The reason behind such a large number of investors is due to the company receiving a federal banking charter, which has turned it into a digital asset bank. This makes Anchorage different from all other custodian products.
Plans With the Funding
The company plans to use the new funding to improve its product, with special focus on global financial firms and other fintech companies. It will also look to integrate more features into DeFi products.
Ben Pederson is KKR’s Technology Growth Equity senior leader.
“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. We are thrilled to lead this Series D round and work with Diogo, Nathan and their talented team as they continue to support the institutional adoption of digital assets through their differentiated, regulated and integrated suite of solutions,” Pederson said in a statement.
Anchorage has increased its number of clients by 96% over the past year, and its headcount has increased by 175% in the same period.
According to co-founder Diogo Mónica, Anchorage still hasn’t spent all of the funds raised from its $80 million Series C funding round in February. By continuing forward with the new funding round, the company can bring larger financial institutions into the fold.
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