Yesterday, New York-based cryptocurrency data provider Lukka announced the closing of its Series C funding round, which was led by State Street. Additional investors include S&P Global and AICPA’s business and technology subsidiary, CPA.com.
According to Crunchbase, the latest round was $15 million bringing the total raised to $38.3 million. With the new funding, Lukka plans to expand its software and data products, targeted at businesses beginning to adopt crypto-assets.
Its existing solutions primarily cover data, accounting and tax reporting. Client sectors include digital asset exchanges and trading desks, accounting firms and funds.
All three investors are strategic partners. “These partnerships continue to emphasize how important crypto assets have become to traditional financial services,” said Lukka’s CEO Robert Materazzi. “Lukka has focused on building solutions with high standards that scale to the requirements of financial institutions and data providers. Our strategic partners such as State Street, S&P Global and CPA.com all play critical roles in the financial ecosystem that Lukka is proud to support.”
State Streets’ Global Head of Product Innovation and Business Development, Dean Sakati said, “Our partnership with Lukka underscores our firm’s broader commitment to innovation as our institutional clients adopt digital assets.”
The latest announcement comes soon after S&P Dow Jones Indices announced a collaboration with Lukka to build its first cryptocurrency index last week.
Over the past year, State Street has participated in multiple blockchain-related activities. In June this year, it collaborated with asset management firm Vanguard to create a proof of concept of its foreign exchange blockchain project. This followed Vanguard’s completion of its first pilot for an asset backed securities solution. Developed with Symbiont, other institutions involved in the pilot included State Street, BNY Mellon, and Citi.
In December last year, State Street announced a digital asset pilot in collaboration with cryptocurrency custodian and exchange Gemini Trust. The pilot combined Gemini’s digital asset custody solution with State Street’s investment reporting.
This week there has been significant activity with incumbent institutions rolling out cryptocurrency solutions. They want to service institutional interest, which was signaled by Thursday’s announcement that insurer MassMutual was investing $100 million in Bitcoin.
The institutional announcements came from BBVA, Standard Chartered and Northern Trust in a joint initiative Zodia, and Singapore’s DBS launched its Digital Exchange.
