Anchorage, which recently became a chartered bank, announced it raised an $80 million Series C round led by Singapore’s GIC, the government investment vehicle. Other participants were a16z, Blockchain Capital, Lux and Indico. Total funding to date is $137 million.
Last month Anchorage partnered with another investor Visa to provide a neobank with a digital asset custody solution. Anchorage started off focusing on secure custody given the founders’ careers. Co-founders Diogo Mónica and Nathan McCauley both have a background in security engineering, having worked at Square and Docker.
“At Anchorage, our focus has always been enabling institutions to participate in the digital asset space,” said the founders in a blog post. “At first, participation meant secure custody you can use. It has since grown to mean a wide range of crypto-native financial products and services, from staking and governance, to financing and lending, to trading and DeFi.”
They continued, “Today, with banks and corporations seeking exposure to the space for themselves and for their customers, we expect the meaning of participation to expand once again.”
The founders outlined plans for the coming months, which include partnering with neo banks, challenger banks as well as incumbents. It also wants to support corporate treasurers that wish to hold digital assets on their balance sheets.
Some have argued that Europe no longer significantly lags behind when it comes to venture capital. Perhaps the largest European digital custody startup is METACO. To date, it has raised a respectable $17 million but well short of Anchorage’s $137 million. Its backers include Standard Chartered, Swisscom, Swiss Post and central bank service provider Giesecke+Devrient. And it has several implementations at high profile institutions.
