Paxos raises $300 million in Series D led by Oak and PayPal Ventures

The cryptocurrency industry is attracting an increasing number of institutional players. This is reflected in new investments in infrastructure and the growing attention firms are paying to Bitcoin as an asset class. The most important developments of recent weeks are in ForkLog’s overview.

Paxos raises $300 million in Series D led by Oak and PayPal Ventures

Oak led Paxos’ Series D funding round of $300 million. Also participating were former investors Declaration Partners, PayPal Ventures, Mithril Capital, and others.

The company raised its valuation to $2.4 billion. According to Paxos founder and CEO Charles Cascarilla, the investment will help scale the business, including through acquisitions.

Founded in 2012, Paxos provides services for PayPal and Venmo, enabling customers to buy and sell cryptocurrencies. Other clients include Revolut, Credit Suisse, and Societe Generale.

Blockchain company Digital Asset Holdings raised $120 million

American company Digital Asset Holdings, operating in enterprise blockchain, raised $120 million in a Series D financing round.

Investors 7Ridge and Eldridge participated. Following the round, former Deutsche Borse director Karsten Kengeter and Veronica Augustsson of 7Ridge joined Digital Asset’s board.

The funds will be used to expand the team and develop a new protocol for interoperability between distributed networks and traditional databases.

Alchemy platform raises $80 million for blockchain developers

Hedge fund Coatue Management led the Series B round for Alchemy, a platform for blockchain developers, worth $80 million.

Financing also included former Tiger Global Management head Lee Fixel, founder of the eponymous brokerage Charles Schwab, and former investors Pantera Capital and Coinbase.

Following the round, Alchemy was valued at $505 million. The funds will be used for international expansion and to broaden the list of supported blockchains.

ConsenSys raises $65 million from JPMorgan and Mastercard

The Ethereum ecosystem solutions developer ConsenSys raised $65 million through a convertible bond issue.

Participants included JPMorgan, Mastercard, Alameda Research, Protocol Labs, Fenbushi, Maker Foundation, The LAO, Liberty City Ventures, Greater Bay Area Homeland Development Fund, and Quotidian Ventures.

The investments will be used to accelerate the convergence of DeFi and Web3 applications on Ethereum with enterprise-grade blockchain infrastructure.

Blockchain startup Securrency raises $30 million

Blockchain compliance-solutions provider Securrency raised $30 million in a Series B financing round, with WisdomTree Investments, State Street, U.S. Bank and Abu Dhabi Catalyst Partners participating.

The funds will be used to launch DeFi products for banks and enter new markets.

Aleo raises $28 million from a16z, Galaxy Digital and Polychain Capital

A platform for building privacy-preserving decentralized applications, Aleo raised $28 million from Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), Placeholder, Coinbase Ventures, Galaxy Digital, Polychain Capital, Scalar Capital, Slow Ventures, Variant Capital and Ethereal Ventures.

The funds will be used to grant grants to protocol creators and attract new developers. The project aims to facilitate the development of zero-knowledge proof-based applications used for privacy and data security.

DeFi project Injective Protocol raises $10 million from Mark Cuban and Pantera Capital

Dubbed as the first Layer-2 exchange protocol, Injective Protocol closed a $10 million financing round. Participants included billionaire Mark Cuban, Pantera Capital, BlockTower, Hashed Ventures, CMS Holdings, and QCP Capital.

The team will use the raised funds to enhance the platform, scale the team by 2022, and build its own trading venue.

OKEx crypto exchange to invest $10 million in the Filecoin ecosystem

The recently established OKEx Block Dream Fund will provide $10 million to support Filecoin ecosystem projects — Slingshot, Launchpad Accelerator and Frontier Accelerator.

Experts say they expect several unicorn-stage startups to emerge in this segment.

The ecosystem support also includes aiding strategic partnerships and business consulting, integration with OKEx’s global network of essential resources, oriented mainly toward Asian markets, and providing access to the OKEx trading platform.

Enso Finance platform raises $5 million from Polychain Capital

Through Enso Finance raised $5 million for a platform aimed at social trading in DeFi, from Polychain Capital, Beacon Fund from Dfinity, Multicoin Capital, P2P Capital, Spartan Group, Zola Global and The LAO.

The project team said Enso enables the creation of unlimited strategies spanning all ERC-20 tokens available in the DeFi ecosystem and provides integration with yield farming.

CoinSwitchKuber raises $25 million

The Indian bitcoin exchange CoinSwitchKuber closed a Series B financing round of $25 million led by Tiger Global Management. The company was valued at $500 million.

The funds will be used to expand the team, grow the user base, and enhance the security of the trading platform.

Also on ForkLog:

• In 2021, the average size of venture investments in crypto companies rose by 120%.
• Forbes: the $300,000 invested by a venture investor in Coinbase grew to $565 million.
• Rapper Nas was found among Coinbase shareholders.

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