Today Paxos announced it raised $142 million in its Series C funding round, bringing its total to $240 million. The firm has a mixed bag of blockchain solutions. On the one hand it has a blockchain equity settlement service being used by Societe Generale, Credit Suisse and Instinet. On the other hand, it provides its Paxos stablecoin as well as cryptocurrency brokerage services to the likes of PayPal and Revolut.
The funding was led by Declaration Partners, which is backed by the family office of David M. Rubenstein, the co-founder and co-chairman of private equity firm the Carlyle Group. Other investors included Mithril Capital, PayPal Ventures, RIT Capital Partners plc, Ken Moelis, Alua Capital, Senator Investment Group. Existing investors include RRE Ventures and Liberty City Ventures.
“In the last year, global adoption of crypto and blockchain-based solutions by enterprises has accelerated,” said Charles Cascarilla, CEO and Co-Founder of Paxos. “We are proud to count among our clients global leaders in payments, banking, trading and fintech, such as PayPal, Credit Suisse, Societe Generale and Revolut.”
He continued: “Paxos is uniquely positioned to address the digital asset needs of global brands and bring our solutions to enterprises with trillions in assets and billions of end users. We are grateful for the support of our new investment partners which helps bring us closer to our vision for a more open, accessible economy.”
The announcement also mentioned another solution that wasn’t on our radar. The firm has commodities and FX post-trade solution, which has processed more than $3.5 trillion in transactions. It supports precious metals, base metals, energy, freight, agriculture and FX.
The company said the funds will be invested in developing its enterprise-grade solutions and it will deepen its commitment to “regulation, reliability and security”.
Earlier this month the firm applied to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) for a national Trust Bank charter.
It follows a couple of weeks of major institutional blockchain and cryptocurrency news. Insurer MassMutual has invested $100 million in bitcoin. SIX and Japan’s SBI announced a digital asset joint venture based in Singapore. Standard Chartered and Northern Trust confirmed a U.K. venture for cryptocurrency custody, Zodia. DBS Bank launched its DBS Digital Exchange for token issuance, cryptocurrency trading, and custody. And BBVA confirmed its accredited investor cryptocurrency trading and custody solution.
