Edinburgh-based Baillie Gifford & Co. has invested $100 million in Blockchain.com.
The 110-year-old asset manager is known for its early investments in tech firms, such as Amazon, Google, and, more recently, Tesla. According to Blockchain.com CEO Peter Smith, this is one of Baillie Gifford’s first investments in a crypto company. He also said this investment represents another endorsement for cryptocurrencies from institutional investors. This is the blockchain startup’s largest single investment to date.
Blockchain.com’s previous funding
Last month, Blockchain.com announced that it had raised $300 million in its Series C round of funding. This put the company’s valuation at $5.2 billion. This came just one month after the company had raised $120 million. During that prior round, it added Louis Bacon and Kyle Bass among its investors. At that point, the company was valued at $3 billion. During that interval, former Deputy Chief-of-Staff to President Barack Obama, Jim Messina, also joined the company’s board of directors.
The latest $100 million investment contributes to the $1.5 billion Blockchain.com raised since its inception in 2011. After raising $30 million during its initial Series A funding round in 2014, the firm struggled to raise capital following bitcoin’s collapse in 2017. But already this year, the company has been able to raise more capital than in the whole of 2020.
Blockchain.com has over 31 million users worldwide in over 200 countries and operates 70 million wallets. In the past year, the company has seen its active user base increase by three-fold.
Public offering consideration
Investments in crypto companies have reached record levels this year. Chief among them is Coinbase’s public listing on the Nasdaq. On the first day of trading, this put the company’s valuation at over $100 billion.
Depending on how the crypto exchange’s shares continue to fare, other crypto companies may follow suit. This is something the Blockchain.com CEO said his company is thinking about. “The company is carefully considering its public-market options,” Smith said.
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