Circle announces $400 million funding round with Fidelity and BlackRock

The Circle Internet Financial, the company behind the stablecoin USD Coin (USDC), said it was in talks to raise $400 million with the participation of BlackRock, Fidelity Management and Research, Marshall Wace and Fin Capital.

With demand for #USDC growing and use cases in financial services continuing to scale globally, Circle plans additional strategic growth with a $400M funding round announcement and strategic partnership with BlackRock. https://t.co/OjkhYT0f5T

— Circle (@circlepay) April 12, 2022

The closing is expected in the second quarter of 2022.

BlackRock has become a strategic partner to Circle. The agreement contemplates exploring the use of USDC in the capital markets.

The investments will go toward further developing the company’s infrastructure amid rising demand for stablecoins and related financial services.

According to CoinGecko, the market capitalization of USD Coin stands at $50.9 billion. In January 2022, the USDC supply on the Ethereum blockchain first surpassed the market leader USDT.

In addition to Ethereum, Circle supports USDC on networks Algorand, Solana, Stellar, Tron, Hedera Hashgraph, Avalanche and Flow. The company announced the creation of a ‘global network of stablecoins’.

In July 2021, as part of a move to go public via a SPAC merger with Concord Acquisition Corp., the company was valued at $4.5 billion. In February 2022, this figure doubled.

Earlier in August 2021, Circle promised to restructure into a commercial crypto bank. At the same time, the company and its partner in the Centre consortium—the exchange Coinbase—agreed to transfer the stablecoin reserves into dollars and U.S. Treasury securities.

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