Binance Approaches Sovereign Wealth Funds for Investment

Binance is in talks with several sovereign wealth funds to pursue them in taking stakes in the crypto exchange, the Founder and Chief Executive, Changpeng Zhao revealed.

In an interview with Financial Times, Zhao detailed that the move to approach the sovereign wealth funds came as the exchange is facing regulatory backlash in many jurisdictions. The exchange is expecting to improve its ‘perception and relationships’ with various governments if it secures investment from sovereign funds.

“But, it may also tie us to specific countries… which we want to be slightly careful with,” Zhao said.

Though he did not disclose the names of the sovereign funds which are potentially interesting in the crypto exchange, he confirmed that the size of the investment will ‘not be small’.

“The ticket size involved will not be small… it won’t be a short process,” he added.

Upcoming Fundings 

Additionally, Zhao revealed last week that the US affiliate of Binance is about to close a massive funding round, securing ‘a couple hundred million’ dollars. But, the possible investment into the parent Binance will be separate from that round.

Binance, which is the largest cryptocurrency exchange in terms of trading volume, is trying to make amends with the regulators and has hired several former regulatory executives in compliance roles.

The exchange has even deviated from its decentralized operations model and is now in the process of setting up its global headquarters. Though the exchange did not confirm the city to be its future base, it is reportedly considering Singapore and Dubai.

Meanwhile, Binance is not ruling out the possibility of going public and is expected to follow the footsteps of its US rival Coinbase that went public earlier this year and now has a market cap of around $76 billion.

Furthermore, Zhao confirmed that Binance is already a profitable company, generating billions of dollars, but the valuation of the company is still unknown.

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