With the world’s biggest financial institutions opting for Fireblock’s digital asset platform, one may readily anticipate that prominent venture capital firms are in the wings to support the three year old unicorn startup. This week Fireblocks announced the completion of its $310 Million Series D that was co-led by Sequoia Capital, Stripes, Spark Capital, Coatue, DRW VC and SCB 10X, the venture arm of Thailand’s oldest bank, Siam Commercial Bank, BNY Mellon and SVB Capital.
The latest raise brings Fireblocks’ cumulative total to $489 million since 2019 and a valuation of $2 billion. The company’s unicorn startup status gives the founding team led by Michael Shaulov, CEO of Fireblocks much to tout, “As it stands, our technology has stood out in the space since the company was founded and its success rate has been evident. Looking ahead into the growth of the industry, there is massive potential for us to continue stepping in and being a trusted partner to financial institutions and other organizations looking to enter the space safely and seamlessly.”
The founding team of Idan Ofrat, Pavel Berengoltz, and Shaulov are building a company that protects digital assets in transit. Its rapid growth is driven by the accelerating pace of Blockchain technologies being integrated into the financial sector, particularly banking that has the highest distribution of blockchain market value. The unicorn startup also points to the increase in digital asset users in their recent press statement. The number of registered blockchain wallets in the second quarter of 2021 was over 70 million, up from 10.98 million in 2016. This pace is expected to continue that by 2022 more than one billion people will be using blockchain wallets.
Fireblocks has built a foundation of serving over “500 financial institutions, has secured the transfer of over one trillion in digital assets, and has a unique insurance policy that covers assets in storage & transit”. The company’s broad target customer base includes: exchanges, lending desks, custodians, banks, trading desks, and hedge funds, securing their digital asset operations through its Network and MPC-based Wallet Infrastructure.
“As crypto becomes increasingly important, we are seeing an explosion of companies that handle digital assets, including crypto-native companies, fintech companies, neobanks and traditional financial institutions,” said Ravi Gupta, Partner at Sequoia Capital. “The secure storage and transfer of digital assets will be core to all of these businesses, and Fireblocks is positioned to become the infrastructure for companies to secure and move digital assets.”
Fireblocks’ unicorn status was achieved through the early investors backing the startup that included leading global VCs in the fintech, blockchain and cybersecurity space such as: Cyberstarts, Eight Roads, Tenaya Capital, Swisscom Ventures, Paradigm, Ribbit Capital, and Coatue.
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