As expected, Coinbase has now reached an $8 billion valuation after wrapping up a $300-million Series E round, the company announced in a blog post on Tuesday.
Asiff Hirji, president and COO of Coinbase, said in the blog post that the round was led by Tiger Global Management, with other funding provided by Y Combinator Continuity, Wellington Management, Andreessen Horowitz, Polychain and others. Recode reported at the beginning of October on Coinbase’s financing round, and suggested that Tiger Global appeared “ready to make a $500-million investment in Coinbase,” but the actual funding appears to have come in lower than that figure.
Nonetheless. the Series E round is obviously a massive haul for the San Francisco-based company, which is one of the most popular cryptocurrency exchanges in the U.S. – and, as Recode notes, now one of the richest startups in the world.
“We see tremendous promise in crypto to build the next great phase of the internet (often referred to as Web 3), which has the power to put control back in the hands of consumers, unleash a new era of innovation, and offer greater access to economic opportunities to more people around the world,” Hirji said in his blog post.
Hirji also listed four initiatives that Coinbase will pursue with its new financing:
- Global expansion–building the infrastructure between fiat and crypto in regulated markets around the world;
- Offering more crypto assets, quickly — we see hundreds of cryptocurrencies that could be added to our platform today and we will lay the groundwork to support thousands in the future;
- Utility applications for crypto — like the recently announced support for a stablecoin (USDC) on Coinbase and our continued development of Coinbase Wallet; and
- Bringing institutions into crypto — adding features and crypto assets to our Custody offering to bring more institutional funds into the space.
On that last point, Coinbase already appears to be attracting institutional investors, launching four products this year targeting that market. While the financing will give Coinbase the scale to expand in any number of directions, Hirji insists the company “is, and will remain, a crypto-first company.”
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