Chainalysis Ups Valuation to $2B after Fresh $100M Funding Round
Cryptocurrency crimefighter, Chainalysis has raised $100 million in a Series D round that values it at $2 billion. The private valuation comes barely four months after the NY company attained the ‘unicorn’ title for the first time when it collected $100 million in a Series C financing back in November.
Behind the latest cash injection was Paradigm, a crypto-focused investment firm based in San Francisco. It was also joined by previous investors Ribbit and Addition, a new venture capital firm led by Lee Fixel, a former top investor at Tiger Global Management.
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Chainalysis also raised an additional $13 million in July 2020 to expand the company’s Series B round to $49 million. The company has initially nabbed a $30 million investment in February 2019, led by venture firm Accel, a growth-stage venture capital firm, then raised a further $6 million from two major Japanese investors in April.
“Paradigm is passionate about investing in companies that enable the future of money. Chainalysis provides key data infrastructure and software for the cryptocurrency ecosystem, and as cryptocurrency adoption grows, so will demand for Chainalysis offerings,” said Fred Ehrsam, Co-founder at Paradigm.
The 75-person startup, which has offices in New York, Washington DC and Copenhagen, provides financial institutions, cryptocurrency exchanges and law enforcement with a platform to detect and investigate cryptocurrency money laundering, fraud and compliance violations.
Additionally, Chainalysis is selling its bitcoin-tracing technology and compliance software to banks and brokers to monitor and link digital identities to cryptocurrencies.
The blockchain intelligence platform said last month it has grown the number of its customers by 65 percent over a yearly basis thanks to higher demand on its investigative technology from public sector agencies. Without revealing the exact figures, the crypto tracer also stated that it had doubled its quarterly revenues during the July-September period.
US authorities disclosed that they leveraged Chainalysis investigative assistance to seize more than $1 billion worth of bitcoin associated with Silk Road, the shady dark web marketplace that it took offline in 2013.
The Department of Justice (DOJ) said it was assisted in seizing the Bitcoins by Chainalysis to identify and investigate the cryptocurrency wallets used in that case. The department estimates that Silk Road generated around 600,000 Bitcoins in commissions for facilitating narcotics sales of illegal drugs, weapons and other nefarious goods.
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