Today, we’re thrilled to announce that Fireblocks has raised $133 million in a Series C funding round led by Coatue, Ribbit, and Stripes with strategic investment from BNY Mellon and SVB Capital.
Developing products to bridge digital and traditional assets is foundational to the future of custody. Following significant due diligence and market research, we recognize Fireblocks as a market leader in providing secure technology to support digital asset services.
When Fireblocks first started in 2018, Galaxy Digital and Genesis Global Trading (DCG) were among our earliest adopters. We’ve come a long way since then; over the last three years, we’ve secured millions of wallets for 200+ customers and transferred $400 billion in digital assets, making us the industry’s most vetted solution.
Read on to find out the challenges we see ahead as the financial system goes digital, how Fireblocks will enable this global transformation, and why we’re planning to be here for the long run.
The future of finance is blockchain-based
As BTC tops $1 trillion in market value, it’s become clearer than ever that a high-level transition to digital assets and crypto is in full swing across the world. Amidst this transformation, banks and fintechs are faced with overwhelming demand from customers and investors to enable digital asset products and services.
As banks like Morgan Stanley continue to signal their support for crypto assets, the pressure is on for financial institutions of all sizes to evolve with the industry.
New funding to enable the global financial transformation toward digital assets
With the completion of our new funding round, we’re setting our sights on a large-scale expansion of resources to help replatform the financial system to digital assets. Our goal with the new funding round is to remain an independent technology partner to top-tier financial institutions to support their transformation and service the market horizontally; with our new funding secured, we’re confident that we’ll be able to do so for years to come.
“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,” said Michael Shaulov, CEO of Fireblocks. “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. We are humbled to have the top VCs in Fintech, and the most important strategic partners support our mission to replatform the financial ecosystem into digital assets. Their financial backing guarantees the long term stability, technology superiority and service delivery to our exponentially growing customer base.”
Our commitment to Finance 2.0
We’re also excited to announce that Bank of New York Mellon, the world’s largest custodian, is the newest financial institution to support the Fireblocks infrastructure.
We are humbled to say that, with the completion of this funding round, Fireblocks is now the most well-funded crypto infrastructure provider in the industry – with a cumulative total of $179 million raised to date.
With new partners like BNY, we are taking on a great deal of responsibility in helping other financial institutions transition into a digital asset-driven system. As this transformation occurs, we’re standing by several core commitments:
Institutions remain in full control of their assets
At Fireblocks, we believe it’s important for financial institutions to remain in full control of their assets. This is the essence of blockchain technology and a key component of enabling FIs to launch new digital asset product lines without compromising on user experience, compliance, or security standards.
Today, the Fireblocks infrastructure is enabling the world’s largest banks and fintechs to build “direct custody” solutions within their organizations. The direct custody model (or providing custody for your own digital assets, utilizing your own internal scale & balance sheet) allows FIs to provide their customers with a top-tier experience, powerful compliance operations, and best-in-class security. Most importantly, it allows them to create scalable, unique offerings that differentiate their brand from the competition. This is in contrast to “digital-native sub-custodians” within the digital asset space, who are carrying over a traditional financial model into an emerging asset class that it cannot support at scale.
Looking to learn more about how Fireblocks is helping top institutions build direct custody? Check out our newest whitepaper, Introducing Direct Custody: Why Financial Institutions Are Choosing To Custody Their Own Digital Assets, for a deep dive.
Open access for all institutional players
Fireblocks is committed to ensuring that all institutions (and indirectly retail) have open access to the digital asset ecosystem, regardless of their size or business type. We aim to continue taking on diverse partners and clients as the industry expands. We are proud of servicing the world’s most progressive crypto-startups as they continue to push our product and innovation and hold us accountable for creating a future-proof platform.
Our institutional asset transfer system, the Fireblocks Network, is the only secure global network for crypto market participants and intermediaries to connect and settle (both on and off-chain). As the transformation to digital assets occurs, the Fireblocks Network provides easy and secure access to 100% of the crypto-lending market and ~90% of crypto liquidity venues, hedge funds, and prop traders for FIs entering the space.
Impeccable infrastructure for an industry with no room for error
It is mission-critical that the infrastructure beneath this new generation of digital asset-driven products and services is secure, powerful, and reliable. As our platform continues to provide support for higher caliber players in the industry, we are dedicated to delivering:
- Next-generation digital asset custody and transfer technologies
- Security and compliance tools to meet the ever-shifting regulatory landscape
- Industry-leading uptime to support millions of users and transactions
Phenomenal ROI for customers
We understand that our users want to match the speed of the market. From the moment a customer chooses to work with Fireblocks, we focus on helping them get their digital asset business (from custody to tokenization and beyond) up and running.
Our Series C funding round will enable us to continue growing our customer support and account management teams to onboard users with the speed they require, regardless of their ambitious goals or timeline.
At Fireblocks, we couldn’t be more excited for what comes next as the global financial system continues to change and evolve. We want to congratulate and thank all of our customers, partners, and investors. Alongside our early adopters, we’ve built a secure platform that will enable a new class of institutions to enter the digital asset space – that’s why we’re in this for the long run.
Interested in learning more about how Fireblocks can help you build next-generation digital asset products and solutions? Read our newest whitepaper, Introducing Direct Custody: Why Financial Institutions Are Choosing To Custody Their Own Digital Assets, to learn how we’re helping banks and fintechs innovate in the digital asset space today.
