The investment round was led by DST Global, Lightspeed Venture Partners and VY Capital and gave Blockchain.com a $5.2 billion valuation.
London-based cryptocurrency services provider Blockchain.com has raised $300 million in a new investment round that valued the firm at $5.2 billion — up from a $3 billion valuation just one month ago.The investment round was led by DST Global, Lightspeed Venture Partners and VY Capital, and is the crypto industry’s third-largest capital raise to date. The sum is equal to that raised in a single round by Bakkt in March 2020, trailing only behind BlockFi’s $350 million earlier this year and Bitmain Technologies’ $400 million back in 2018.Just one month ago, Blockchain.com raised $120 million at a subsequently reported valuation of $3 billion. The Wall Street Journal notes that while capital raising in the crypto space declined from a total of $4.5 billion in 2018 to $2.7 billion by 2020, this year has already seen three of the si largest-ever capital raises in the industry’s history.Blockchain.com plans to use the fresh funds to recruit more employees and support its institutional business. According to CEO Peter Smith:“The institutional side requires more capital. When you’re pitching asset managers they want to see a big balance sheet.”Smith added that if the current Bitcoin (BTC) price boom continues, he expects Blockchain.com’s profit for 2021 would hit an all-time high in the “mid-nine digits.” Its business has already reportedly over double since just the start of this year. According to Smith, the company has 31 million verified users across 200 countries …
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