Today institutional digital asset custody firm Fireblocks announced a $133 million Series C funding, bringing total funds raised to $179 million. Coatue, Ribbit and Stripes led the investment round with Bank of New York Mellon as a strategic investor alongside Silicon Valley Bank as well as existing investors such as Swisscom Ventures.
“Fintechs and banks require not only a specialized custody and settlement infrastructure to ensure customers funds are safely managed, but a platform that enables new lines of digital offerings,” said Michael Shaulov, CEO of Fireblocks.
“While we have no plans to become a bank, we believe our infrastructure will lend itself perfectly to power an entirely new era of financial services.” Decentralized finance was explicitly mentioned in the announcement. And the reference to becoming a bank is a nod to competitor Anchorage which was recently awarded a federal banking charter and raised $80 million.
And of course, new investor BNY Mellon is the world’s largest custodian bank. Last month the bank announced it created a Digital Assets unit and was working on a solution to integrate traditional and digital asset custody.
“Developing products to bridge digital and traditional assets is foundational to the future of custody,” said Roman Regelman, CEO 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.”
Fireblocks says its network secures more than $400 billion in assets. It has 200 clients that include British fintech Revolut, cryptocurrency lender BlockFi that recently announced its own $350 million funding, and B2C2 the cryptocurrency trading firm recently acquired by Japan’s SBI.
