The fall of FTX has reverberates across the digital asset market, and one of Asia's biggest crypto lenders is targeting $100 million in funding at a higher valuation.
The Singapore outfit has commitments from lead investors for $50 million at a valuation of $1.5 billion a year ago, up from $1 billion a year ago, according to people familiar with the matter. The deal has yet to be finalized and the company is still looking for investors for the other half of the round, said the people, asking not to be identified discussing private information. It is not immediately clear who the round's lead investors are.
As part of the normal course of business, Matrixport engages with key stakeholders, including investors who want to participate and enable our vision as a digital assets financial services provider, according to Ross Gan, the company's public relations head.
Matrixport, founded by cripto-Bitcoin billionaire Wu Jihan, belongs to a group of firms trying to bring a familiar Wall Street formula to the virtual-asset landscape. It offers financial services from custody to trading and structured products to both institutional and retail customers. In Asia, it competes with firms like Babel Finance, which is restructuring after taking a hit from this year's meltdown, and Temasek Holdings Pte. Amber Group is backed by the government.
A series of high-profile criptocurrencies failures in recent months have caused investors to be concerned with loose regulation of the industry and lack of guardrails to protect client assets. In the aftermath of FTX collapse, Matrixport said this month it has no risk of insolvency with regard to Sam Bankman- Fried's empire, but dozens of its customers have suffered losses due to exposure to FTX-linked products on its platform.
According to the investor deck that was viewed by Bloomberg News, Matrixport handles $5 billion of trades each month and has tens of billions of dollars of assets under management and custody. It says close to 300 people are employed by the firm.
During the summer of 2012, when Matrixport raised more than $100 million from investors like DST Global and Tiger Global, the co-founder of Bitmain Technologies Ltd. turned his second venture into a unicorn. Matrixport also counted IDG Capital and Dragonfly Capital as investors.
In 2019, Matrixport was spun off from Bitmain after the world's largest maker of Bitcoin mining rigs ran into a cash crunch. The Chinese mogul is now a chairman of Matrixport and his mining company Bitdeer Technologies Holding Co.
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