Startup company Fireblocks, developer of a secure platform for digital currencies and assets, announced today that it had raised $310 million in Series D funding. The round was co-led by Sequoia Capital, Stripes, Spark Capital, Coatue, DRW VC and SCB 10X, the venture arm of Thailand’s Siam Commercial Bank.
The current raise gives Fireblocks a post-money valuation of $2.2 billion, three times the valuation in its previous financing round last March. Most of the money raised will be invested in the company, but 10% will go to the entrepreneurs and the employees in a secondary transaction. Since it was founded three years ago, Fireblocks has raised a total of $489 million. The company employs 150 people, 100 of them in Israel.
Fireblocks is a platform for financial enterprises that provides a secure infrastructure for moving, storing, and issuing digital assets using blockchain technology. The platform enables crypto exchanges, lending desks, custodians, banks, trading desks, hedge funds and other financial bodies to carry out transfers of cryptocurrencies through the Fireblocks Network and MPC (multi-party computation)-based Wallet Infrastructure.
Fireblocks was founded in 2018 by Michael Shaulov (who sold Lacoon Mobile Security to Check Point Software Technologies Ltd. (Nasdaq: CHKP) for $100 million) , Idan Ofrat, a founder of C4 Security, which was sold to Elbit Systems Ltd. (Nasdaq: ESLT; TASE: ESLT), and Pavel Berengoltz, who was VP Development at Safend, which was bought by Wave Systems.
Talking to "Globes, Shaulov explained the sharp jump in Fireblocks' valuation within a few months. "There's a combination of factors here. The crypto market is exploding, and there's an understanding that it will be much bigger than just bitcoin. Since the beginning of this year, our customer base has grown by 350%, to 500 today. Annual recurring revenue has also grown by 300% since January. At the same time, there has been very significant consolidation in the market. Our main competitors, such as Israeli company Curv, have been acquired, and it's clear that we are the market winners. We had offers to raise money at valuations higher than $2.2 billion, but we chose to optimize the investors we took.
"We are starting to see broad adoption of digital currencies. There's an overt side to this, such as the report that Amazon intends to support bitcoin. There's also a hidden side, which we know from our work with 60-70 banks around the world, with credit card companies, and with leading clearing services, on the use of digital currencies. There's a big FOMO effect in this field."
Last month, a lawsuit was filed against Fireblocks in the Tel Aviv District Court. Crypto company StakeHound claims that negligence by Fireblocks led to a loss of NIS 245 million in digital currency. Fireblocks denies the claim. "As you can understand from the investment in us, there isn't too much substance to this claim," says Shaulov. "We have confidence in the court in Israel."
Published by Globes, Israel business news - en.globes.co.il - on July 27, 2021
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