On February 28, 2019, Bloomberg revealed that made up part of the investment team in Coinbase’s 2018 Series E equity round which enabled the San Franciso-based cryptocurrency exchange to raise $300 million and hit a valuation of $8 billion.
GIC Invests in Coinbase
Per close to the matter, GIC Private Limited formerly known as Government of Singapore Investment Corporation was one of the companies that led Coinbase’s series E round in October 2018.
At that time, the digital currency exchange had only that the investors were Tiger Global Management, Wellington Management, Y Combinator Continuity, , and Polychain among others.
However, GIC is reportedly one of the sponsors of the series E seed funding despite representatives from both companies making no comments in that regard.
Funding Crypto Adoption
On October 20, 2018, Coinbase that its Series E round of financing aimed to accelerate the adoption of and other blockchain-powered virtual currencies.
The platform also revealed that it would help to bring institutional investors into the cryptocurrency market.
The latter have been reluctant to invest in the space and have attributed it to the unregulated nature of the industry as well as the ease in which cryptocurrencies can be used to facilitate crimes such as money laundering and .
As of late, however, this sentiment is changing. More and more institutional investors are beginning to join the cryptocurrency and blockchain technology bandwagon, including , the oldest Swiss private bank, , a U.S. based investment bank, and more.
These are institutions that control billions of dollars in assets and in the case of GIC, the capital market company oversees over $100 billion in assets in about 40 countries including investments in government bonds and private equity.
Aiming for the Moon
Despite the prolonged crypto winter, Coinbase remains a desirable investment for financial big whales, and this has enabled the firm to achieve its $8 billion valuations.
On February 4, 2019, rated the cryptocurrency exchange as the 16th most innovative Fintech company in 2019. Coinbase has also experienced a fair share of condemnations in recent times.
On February 19, 2019, Coinbase became the object of following its acquisition of Neutrino, a blockchain intelligence platform whose founders were accused of cooperating with authoritarian regimes.
Published at Sat, 02 Mar 2019 07:00:08 +0000
