Grayscale parent Digital Currency Group raises $700 million

Crypto conglomerate Digital Currency Group has raised over $700 million in a round led by two SoftBank funds, the Wall Street Journal reported earlier today.

Excited to welcome world-class investors @SoftBank @CapitalG @RibbitCapital Tribe, GIC, & Emory University aboard for the next stage of growth.https://t.co/qPQxCQqqRj

— Digital Currency Group (@DCGco) November 1, 2021

DCG, as it is known in crypto circles, has businesses spanning from crypto funds provider Grayscale, to crypto media outlet CoinDesk, to wallet service Luno—spanning nearly all major businesses in the niche crypto sector. It was founded in 2015 by Barry Silbert and took a little over five years to reach today’s $10 billion valuation.

“We’re the best proxy for investing in this industry,” Barry Sibert, founder, and CEO of Digital Currency Group, told CNBC in an interview. “We were looking for the type of backers that could be, and hopefully will be with, with us on this journey for the next couple of decades.”

Existing investors are selling shares to new backers. The $700 million deal was led by SoftBank and included Google’s Capital G and Ribbit Capital, among others. The investment also signals new interest by venture capital firms looking for exposure to the digital asset class outside of Bitcoin.

Capital G founder and general partner David Lawee said he saw this as a way to back a potential winner in crypto-financial services. “When I think back to the nineties, very few companies I met still exist — it’s very hard to evolve as quickly as technology evolves — you need to be a pretty nimble company to take advantage of it,” he said.

The round makes DCG one of the most valuable privately held companies in the space alongside FTX, Kraken, and Circle. The company is profitable and is on track to top $1 billion in revenue for the year, as per Silbert.

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