New York City-based Crypto custodian Fireblocks has raised $133 million in Series C venture capital funding with strategic investment from BNY Mellon and Silicon Valley Bank. The round was led by Coatue, Ribbit, and Stripes. The completion of the round brings the company’s total amount of venture capital raised to $179 million. Previous investors include Paradigm, Galaxy Digital, and Swisscom Ventures.
The investment comes a month after BNY Mellon announced the setup of a digital assets unit to help clients hold, transfer and issue digital assets. The bank’s own digital asset custody “will be available later this year pending required approvals,” writes the company’s representative. “Developing products to bridge digital and traditional assets is foundational to the future of custody,” said Roman Regelman, Chief Executive Officer of Asset Servicing and Head of Digital at BNY Mellon. “Following significant due diligence and market research, we recognize Fireblocks as a market leader in providing secure technology to support digital asset services.“
With raised capital, the company plans to expand the infrastructure for its rapidly increasing customer base. “Engineering is going to be a major part of our spend,” says Fireblocks’ CEO and co-founder Michael Shaulov. Over the past couple of months, the firm has onboarded 70 new clients and will likely have 80 new customers by the end of this quarter, twice more than forecasted. To date, Fireblocks has completed $400 billion in digital asset transfers for approximately 230 clients including banks, hedge funds, fintech firms, and exchanges, among others. The firm closely advises 50% of the top 70 banks in the world and is developing pilot products with five multinational banks, says Shaulov. Assets under management lie in the $10-20 billion range.
Source: Forbes
In line with its expansion plans into the digital asset sector, BNY is currently on the lookout for blockchain specialists.
