In an interview with TechCrunch, co-founder and CEO Michael Shaulov described crypto custody platform Fireblocks as “the most successful and least-known startup in the blockchain ecosystem.” The firm said today that it is now the world’s most valuable digital asset infrastructure provider, with an $8 billion valuation, approximately four times greater than its Series D valuation six months ago.
The new valuation coincides with Fireblocks’ Series E investment round, which saw the company raise $550 million from a consortium of investors led by D1 Capital Partners and Spark Capital. General Atlantic, Index Ventures, Mammoth, Alphabet’s CapitalG growth fund, Altimeter, Iconiq Strategic Partners, Canapi Ventures, and Parafi Growth Fund are among the other investors in the round, according to the business. The current round rises Fireblocks’ total funding to well over $1 billion since its launch in 2018.
Financial institutions such as Bank of New York Mellon, BlockFi, and eToro can use its offering to provide direct custody of digital assets. According to Shaulov, Fireblocks allows custody over 25 different blockchains. “It’s kind of like SaaS software,” Shaulov explained, “that allows [customers] to manage their own custody using their own wallets in a high-end, secure, institutional fashion.”
In 2021, Fireblocks grew significantly, from 100 to 800 clients and $2 trillion in assets safeguarded on its platform, according to Shaulov. It also increased income by 600 percent year over year, concluding the year with a total of between $50 and $100 million, though Shaulov refuses to reveal the exact figure. Last year, Shaulov added, two of Fireblocks’ major competitors in the crypto custody infrastructure industry bought. Fire blocks does not consider anyone firm to be its direct competitor at this time, he noted, citing PayPal’s acquisition of Curv in March and Coinbase’s acquisition of Israel-based Unbound Security in November.
According to Shaulov, Fireblocks distinguishes itself in the market by providing a network for its clients to connect by buying and selling transactions between themselves, as well as supporting a variety of blockchains and tokens. The funds from the current financing will be used to double the company’s 300-person workforce by the end of 2022, with an emphasis on hiring engineers and customer success professionals.
As the legislative climate in these regions improves, it wants to expand to other nations in Southeast Asia, Eastern Europe, and Africa. Today, Fireblocks has 40% of its clients in the United States, slightly more than 30% in Europe, and roughly, 25% in Asia-Pacific, which Shaulov claims has been the fastest-growing region for the company since 2020. According to Shaulov, decentralized finance (DeFi) has been a particularly hot growth area for the firm in terms of crypto goods, accounting for 10% of Fireblocks’ transaction volume in the past month.
“At the moment, Fireblocks is the number one and go-to vendor for any institution interested in learning more about DeFi.”About 200 of our 800 clients are using our DeFi extensions, which connect them to various protocols,” he said. DeFi custody is now available through the Aave Arc protocol, a version of Aave that is popular among financial institutions because it includes paths for them quickly complies with anti-money laundering rules.
Fire blocks also offers strategic advising to companies who are already using its custody platform and want to expand their digital asset capabilities. “I think what we really figured out is this combination of high-end security and the ability to implement it with the customer in a really straightforward method for them,” she says. They have control but don’t have to invest a lot of resources to get up and running, which is ideal for institutions that want control but lack the technical resources to fully operationalize and run [custody] themselves,” Shaulov explained. “They can tailor [our product] to their particular specifications and policies.”
