Fireblocks Scores $133 Million from BNY Mellon and Others

New York-based Fireblocks, a cryptocurrency custodian company, announced on Thursday the closure of its Series C funding round after securing $133 million from new and existing investors.

The round was co-led by Coatue, Ribbit and Stripes as the startup received strategic investments from BNY Mellon and Silicon Valley Bank. Paradigm, Galaxy Digital, Swisscom Ventures, Tenaya Capital and Cyberstarts Ventures, which previously invested in the startups, also participated in the latest funding round.

Founded in 2018, Fireblocks offers an enterprise-grade custodian platform that allows the moving, storing and issuance of several top digital currencies. The massive funding round occurred as demand for custodian services are skyrocketing as more and more institutions and corporates are investing in Bitcoin.

“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,” Fireblocks CEO, Michael Shaulov said.

Major Expansion Plans Ahead

The proceeds from the round will be utilized for the startup’s ambitious growth plans.

“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,” Shaulov added.

Fireblocks’ clients include both crypto-native institutions and exchanges, and it has secured more than $400 billion in assets for its customers. The scale of custodian demand can be seen with the recent acquisition of Curv, which uses multi-party computation (MPC) technology for clients’ fund protection similar to Fireblocks.

After the latest funding, Fireblocks secured a total of $179 million from venture capitals, but the valuation of the startup is not known.

“Developing products to bridge digital and traditional assets is foundational to the future of custody,” said Roman Regelman, BNY Mellon’s asset servicing CEO and digital head. “Following significant due diligence and market research, we recognize Fireblocks as a market leader in providing secure technology to support digital asset services.”

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