Global cryptocurrency platform Liquid.com raises Series C funding that puts the company valuation at over $1 billion.
This valuation establishes Liquid as one of only two tech unicorns in Japan’s startup space. Founded in 2014, Liquid has achieved unicorn status in less than five years.
This latest round of funding is led by investment firm IDG Capital, with participation from the world’s largest maker of cryptocurrency mining rigs, Bitmain Technologies.
This investment in Liquid marks an addition to IDG’s current portfolio of crypto investments, which include Coinbase, Ripple, Bitmain and Kakao’s crypto unit. This deal marks the latest investment for Bitmain this year into a regulated digital asset trading platform, following their investment into ErisX, another derivatives and digital asset trading platform aiming to be a licensed Commodity Futures Trading Commission-regulated futures market and clearinghouse.
Based in Japan, Liquid has raised more than $20 million in
In 2017, Liquid raised more than US$100m in a pre-discounted ICO raise, which was the first regulated ICO to be done in Japan.
Proceeds from the ongoing Series C funding will be used to fuel global expansion, product development of the core trading exchange business and entering into the security token market.
Liquid CEO Mike Kayamori said, “As we enter into a new age of digital disruption in financial services, consumers are increasingly placing a higher value on digital assets and technologies they can trust and use with greater ease. Our vision is to make financial services accessible to all, which means bringing more people into the digital asset space so that anyone can be a part of it. This first round of Series C funding from our two highly respected investors, IDG Capital and Bitmain, puts us in an incredibly strong position to make a global impact in 2019.”