Fall 2020 has been a period of notable growth for digital assets. Bitcoin’s rally to over $15,000 raised new awareness of how powerful virtual currencies can be in a world gripped by a pandemic; meanwhile, top financial companies like Paypal are demonstrating their strong interest in the space by offering new products and integrations. In general, the path to a digital-driven economy seems clearer than ever as regulatory clarity increases across the globe.
As new digital asset and crypto companies enter the market, Fireblocks remains committed to providing a next-generation backend to build secure, profitable, and innovative businesses.
That’s why we’re so thrilled to announce that we’ve raised $30 million in Series B funding, bringing our cumulative fundraising to $46 million. This funding round was led by Paradigm with participation from existing investors, Cyberstarts, Tenaya Capital, Swisscom, Galaxy Digital, Digital Currency Group (DCG), and Cedar Hill Capital.
Welcoming Coinbase co-founder & SVP of Global Sales from Cisco to the leadership team
Coinciding with the completion of our latest round of fundraising, we’re also announcing the addition of Fred Ehrsam to Fireblocks’ Board of Directors.
Ehrsam is the co-founder and Managing Partner at Paradigm and co-founder of Coinbase. As we continue to provide the backend for companies like Revolut, Celsius, PrimeTrust, Genesis, and more to power their digital asset services (or launch new ones), bringing in the expertise behind one of today’s most influential companies, Coinbase, is pivotal.
As Ehrsam explained, increased demand for a strong crypto backend is a large motivation for investing in Fireblocks.
Beyond custody, Fireblocks has made a simple crypto backend for everything from hedge funds to fintech platforms to plug directly into crypto and be able to access every trading venue, liquidity provider, lending desk, counterparty, and crypto-native app in the ecosystem . Fireblocks has become the go-to for any business looking to build new digital asset operations or scale existing ones.
In addition to Ehrsam, we’re also welcoming Matt Maloney, formerly of Cisco, as our new SVP of Global Sales to scale and lead go-to-market strategy across key regions, including North America, Europe, and Asia. Matt brings 25 years of enterprise and cybersecurity experience, a core trademark of the Fireblocks leadership team, to help financial institutions navigate the complex nature of digital asset security.
How we got here
A lot has changed for Fireblocks since we announced our Series A round and launched out of stealth mode in June 2019. Since then we have:
- Launched the Fireblocks Network, today’s most connected and active institutional digital asset transfer network
- Expanded into Asia and Europe with new offices in Singapore, Hong Kong, Germany, and France
- Gained Ernst & Young SOC 2 Type II certification
- Helped customers securely transfer over $150 billion in digital assets
- Launched MPC-CMP, a new open-source and peer-reviewed MPC algorithm that improves digital asset signing speed by up to 800%
- Rolled out secure institutional Defi access to Compound
- Streamlined compliance and security operations through integrations with KYT/AML providers including Chainalysis and Elliptic
- Added support for bi-lateral crypto derivative trading with X-Margin
- Added tier-1 banks, such as Revolut and Signature, to our customer and partner lists
Doubling R&D and Engineering
We’ll utilize our new funding to expand the team globally, and invest in R&D efforts to continue developing a safe, efficient launchpad for digital asset businesses to enter the market and thrive.
Over the next three months, Fireblocks plans to double the engineering team to 100. We’re also hiring across sales, marketing, and support. To learn more about the Fireblocks team, and explore career opportunities check out the careers page.
