BlockFi, a financial services company dedicated to building a bridge between cryptocurrencies and traditional financial and wealth management products, announced the completion of its Series D fundraising round, which was led by new investors including Bain Capital Ventures, partners of DST Global, Pomp Investments and Tiger Global. The $350 million round follows three prior rounds totaling $100M within the last two years, and includes participation from Susquehanna Government Products, LLLP, Bracket Capital, Paradigm, Valar Ventures, Morgan Creek Digital, Akuna Capital, PJC, Hudson River Trading, ParaFi Capital, Jump Capital, Pacific Century Group, Gaingels, Third Prime, Kenetic, CMS Holdings, Breyer Capital, The Venture Collective and Castle Island Ventures.
BlockFi’s Series D round values the company at $3 billion and will enable further innovation in the product suite, accelerate expansion into new markets, and provide capital for select acquisition opportunities. These activities will augment the current core product offering, which includes: (i) earning yield on digital assets at attractive rates; (ii) buying and selling digital assets directly on BlockFi (Bitcoin, Ethereum, Link, Litecoin, PaxG, and multiple stablecoins); and (iii) originating US dollar loans secured by the value of digital assets on the platform. Additionally, BlockFi is a leading lender and provider of trade execution services to institutions participating in digital asset markets.
The company recently added multiple senior executives and announced a number of retail and institutional investor-focused products and initiatives, including: a Bitcoin rewards credit card; the BlockFi Bitcoin Trust; an OTC trading desk; and Private Client Services in Asia. In addition, BlockFi employees who have been employed for more than one year have the opportunity to receive liquidity on a portion of their equity via a secondary tender offer as part of this financing round.
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Investor enthusiasm for the Series D round reflects both the company’s strong business growth as well as broader conviction in cryptocurrencies as an asset class. Individual investors, institutional asset managers, and corporate treasury departments are all exploring avenues to invest in cryptocurrencies. BlockFi, whose executives have backgrounds in both traditional finance and digital assets, serves an important role for investors entering the asset class.
“In less than six months since we completed our Series C, bitcoin and other digital assets have assumed a central role in many investors’ portfolios and in broader financial markets. Our conviction that digital assets are the future of finance has been vindicated by our client base, which grew 10X year-over-year in 2020 and has more than doubled since the end of 2020,” said Zac Prince, CEO and Co-Founder of BlockFi. “Digital assets will continue to democratize finance, serve as a hedge against inflation and expansionary monetary policy, and promote innovation in financial technology and accessibility to financial services.”
“Our goal for BlockFi has always been to facilitate cryptocurrencies going mainstream, and each day provides more evidence that is exactly what is occurring,” added Flori Marquez, Senior Vice President of Operations and Co-Founder of BlockFi. “I’m incredibly proud of how quickly we have added new professionals and products to meet market demand, and excited to continue adding talent and products in the months ahead.”
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“We are in the early innings of retail and institutional crypto adoption; as demand grows, we see an enormous opportunity for crypto companies to offer a suite of sophisticated, scalable financial services to engage and empower clients,” said Stefan Cohen, Partner at Bain Capital Ventures. “BlockFi has solidified itself as a category winner built on superior products, a world-class team, and a brand of trust and reliability for investors and borrowers. We couldn’t be more thrilled to partner with the company to accelerate its growth globally and seize one of the most important opportunities of our time in shaping the future of finance.”
Since its Series C, BlockFi has focused heavily on adding world-class talent to its leadership team, all of whom come from respected financial institutions. Among the company’s recent additions are Tony Lauro as Chief Financial Officer (Intermex, JP Morgan Chase Commerce Solutions), Andrew Tam as Senior Vice President of Marketing (Credit Karma, Apartment List, and Ares Private Equity), Greg Collett as Head of Investment Products (World Gold Council, Deutsche Bank), Rishi Ramchandani as Director of Business Development for Asia (Bank of America Merrill Lynch), and Lei Lei as Director of Institutional Sales-Real Money Clients (Deutsche Bank, Nomura).
Since the end of 2019, BlockFi has seen its client base grow from 10,000 to more than 225,000 today. Monthly revenue currently exceeds $50 million, and the company now boasts more than $15 billion in assets on its platform, with a 0% loss rate across its lending portfolio since inception. The company has grown its team to over 500 people worldwide.
Investors across the industry have voiced widespread support for BlockFi’s mission and its role in shaping the future of cryptocurrency.
Anthony Pompliano at Pomp Investments: “Zac and Flori have done an incredible job building a business that serves hundreds of thousands of crypto investors around the world. These financial products are essential to accelerating the adoption of bitcoin and cryptocurrencies. As BlockFi continues to grow, my expectation is that this will become one of the most important companies in global finance in the coming years.”
Jihan Bowes-Little at Bracket Capital: “BlockFi is empowering the next generation of investors to gain meaningful exposure to the most asymmetric asset class of our generation. Their long-term approach to building the optimal tools for today’s market, combined with management’s vision for the future, are second to none. We’re excited to partner with Zac, Flori, and the team as they continue on their journey.”
Nick Shekerdemian at The Venture Collective: “It’s rare to come across such a transformational business with the innate ability to fundamentally change the way we interact with, earn money from, and store financial assets. We’re proud to be supporting BlockFi on this next chapter as they continue to go from strength to strength, and expand their global footprint.”
Bobby Cho at CMS Holdings: “Having seen the growth of BlockFi’s services for a number of years, we’re excited to further help their product development journey as both customer and now investor.”
Ben Forman at ParaFi Capital: “We are long-time institutional clients of BlockFi on lending, borrowing, and OTC trading. The BlockFi team has always gone out of its way to be creative and thoughtful on structuring credit terms. BlockFi is emerging as a new type of business, a crypto financial institution that bridges traditional finance into the blockchain ecosystem. We are extremely excited to now become both customers and investors in conjunction with this round.”
Jehan Chu at Kenetic: “BlockFi continues to set the bar for institutional-grade services in the age of digital finance, and as one of their earliest investors we look forward to the second chapter of their history as they continue to expand across Asia. “
Matt Huang at Paradigm: “BlockFi has built an incredible portfolio of crypto financial services products. We are excited to partner with them on their mission to help bring cryptocurrency mainstream.”
Matt Walsh at Castle Island Ventures: “BlockFi is a company of consequence that is building critical products and services to enable a better financial system on public blockchain protocols. We are incredibly excited to be continuing our support for the company.”
Peter Johnson at Jump Capital: “BlockFi is leading the industry in providing extremely attractive interest-bearing accounts to savers and compelling borrowing offerings to crypto and dollar borrowers. We are proud to invest behind Zac, Flori, and the rest of the impressive team at BlockFi who are utilizing crypto rails to build a next-generation global financial institution.”
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