London-based crypto service provider Blockchain.com announced that it had raised $300 million in its Series C round of funding. This puts the company’s valuation at $5.2 billion.
“I’m pleased to share that we’ve raised our Series C, securing $300M in funding at a $5.2B post-money valuation led by DST Global, Lightspeed Venture Partners, and VY Capital,” Blockchain.com CEO Peter Smith tweeted.
This latest round comes just one month after the company had raised $120 million, when it added Louis Bacon and Kyle Bass among its investors. At that point the company was valued at $3 billion.
Since then, former Deputy Chief-of-Staff to President Barack Obama, Jim Messina also joined the company’s board of directors.
Blockchain.com Development
Since its inception in 2011, Blockchain.com has raised $1.5 billion, between debt and equity. During its initial Series A funding round in 2014, the company was able to raise $30 million. Since then, many crypto firms struggled to raise capital after bitcoin’s collapse in 2017.
However, this year, the company has been able to raise more capital than in the whole of 2020. This renewed interest is largely thanks to bitcoin’s surging price, currently around $57,000.
Blockchain.com now has over 31 million users worldwide in over 200 countries and operates 70 million wallets. The company has seen its active user base increase by three-fold in the past year alone. Additionally, 28% of all bitcoin transactions since 2012 occurred through Blockchain.com, which represents billions in transaction volume.
The company intends to use the capital to hire more employees and support its institutional business. “The institutional side requires more capital,” Smith said. “When you’re pitching asset managers they want to see a big balance sheet.”
Other Significant Crypto Valuations
According to research firm CB Insights, this latest capital raise ties for the third-largest in the industry so far. While Bitmain Technologies raised $400 million in 2018, last year Bakkt raised $300 million, and earlier this year, BlockFi raised $350 million.
Earlier this year, American crypto exchange Coinbase announced its intention to go public. The company filed its S-1 registration form with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in February 2020. It later amended the filing, declaring its intention to sell up to 114 million shares on Nasdaq — a potential $943 million valuation.
Depending on its success, other crypto companies may follow suit. It is still unknown whether Blockchain.com could be among them. “The company is carefully considering its public-market options,” Smith said.
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