Techemy Advisory Capital Chronicles: February 2019
Welcome to the first Techemy Advisory Capital Chronicles where we cover capital raises, mergers and acquisitions (M&As), ICOs and STOs that occurred in the blockchain space over the past month.
Techemy Advisory focuses on providing quality insights and access to exclusive deal flow like Archax, a new, institutional-grade exchange for trading asset-backed tokens (digital securities, security tokens, etc.) based in London.
Equity Capital Raising
In February 2019 over $200M USD was raised by ~17 blockchain companies.
06/02/2019 | SatoshiPay | USD$1,140,000
SatoshiPay, a micro-payments platform announced a new round of funding of $1.14M (1M Euros). The round was led by Daniel Masters, Executive Chairman at CoinShares, with business angels from London and Hamburg, SatoshiPay CEO Meinhard Benn, and blockchain foundations æternity and AERGO joining the raise.
06/02/2019 | Embleema |USD $3,700,000
Embleema, a leader in blockchain for health, announced that it has closed a $3.7M Series A funding round, led by strategic partner Pharmagest, a leading pharmacy software group in Europe, and TechStars.
11/02/2019 | Archax | Undisclosed
Archax, a forthcoming institutional tokenised securities exchange, has raised an undisclosed sum from SPICE VC, a fully tokenised venture fund.
12/02/2019 | Chainalysis | USD$30,000,000
Chainalysis, a provider of cryptocurrency compliance and investigation solutions, announced a successful Series B financing round of $30M led by Accel. Benchmark and other existing investors also increased their investments.
13/02/2019 | Jointer.io | USD$2,500,000
Jointer.io, a next-generation commercial real estate platform, announced the closing of a $2.5M seed round from various private angel investors throughout Silicon Valley and a global startup competition.
18/02/2019 | PlayGame | Undisclosed
PlayGame, an Indonesia-based blockchain gaming platform announced that TRON has injected an undisclosed amount into the company.
18/02/2019 | SIMBA Chain | USD$500,000
SIMBA Chain, a startup working to democratise blockchain technology by making it accessible to everyone, has raised $500,000 in a pre-seed round. Backers include Elevate Ventures, Notre Dame Pit Road Fund, Tracy Graham, CEO of Data Reality and AECI International CEO Hari Agarwal.
18/02/2019 | Beam | Undisclosed
Beam, a provider of blockchains that consider the confidentiality of user information, has raised an undisclosed amount from Recruit Co Ltd's RSP Blockchain Tech Fund.
19/02/2019 | CipherTrace | USD$15,000,000
Blockchain security company CipherTrace announced venture capital financing of $15M led by Aspect Ventures with contributions from other notable investors such as Galaxy Digital, Neotribe Ventures, and WestWave Capital.
20/02/2019 | Investa Crowd | Undisclosed
InvestaCrowd, Asia’s leading digital securities investment platform for real estate, private equity and venture capital, has raised an undisclosed sum from SPICE VC and Hong Kong angel investors, Soul Capital.
21/02/2019 | Coindirect | USD$1,140,000
Global-minded cryptocurrency platform Coindirect has raised $1.14M (1M Euros) in an investment round led by London-based Concentric, with participation from Blockchain.com and MakerDAO.
24/02/2019 | Solidius Labs | USD$3,000,000
Solidius Labs, a crypto surveillance corporation has raised $3M in a seed-subsidising round led by Hanaco Ventures. Other contributors include David Krell, Global Founders Capital, and Norman Sorensen.
25/02/2019 | Ticket2Me | USD$350,000
Blockchain-enabled ticketing startup Ticket2Me has raised $350,000 in seed funding from Singapore-based Citystate Group.
26/02/2019 | Curv | USD$6,500,000
Digital asset startup Curv announced $6.5M in seed funding to launch a cloud-based digital asset wallet for financial institutions that does not use private keys. The round was led by Team8 and Digital Currency Group, with participation from Flybridge Capital, Jump Capital, Monex Group and Liberty City Ventures.
27/02/2019 | Nivaura | USD$20,000,000
Capital markets blockchain startup Nivaura has raised a total of $20M with the closing of its second seed extension round led by the London Stock Exchange Group. Other investors in the latest round include Santander InnoVentures, the Spanish bank’s VC arm; law firms Linklaters and Orrick; Transamerica Ventures, part of pensions and asset management giant Aegon; MiddleGame Ventures; Digital Currency Group; and Spencer Lake, formerly head of global markets at HSBC.
27/02/2019 | ThunderCore | USD$50,000,000
ThunderCore has raised $50M to build a more nimble, cheaper, and faster blockchain platform. Investors include Pantera Capital, Huobi Capital, MetaStable, ZhenFund, Electric Capital, Arrington XRP Capital, FBG, Hashed, Kinetic, and SV Angel.
28/02/2019 | Coin Metrics | USD$1,900,000
Coin Metrics, a provider of crypto-asset market and network data, has announced the closing of a $1.9M seed round, led by Castle Island Ventures, with participation from Fidelity Investments, Highland Capital Partners and Dragonfly Capital.
28/02/2019 | Kava Labs | USD$1,200,000
Kava Labs, an open payment system for cryptocurrencies, announced a $1.2M funding round led by Lemniscap and Digital Asset Capital Management, along with other investors including Xpring of Ripple, Coil Technologies, 2020 Ventures, Arrington Capital, Hard Yaka, Robot Ventures, UniValues Associates, and other private investors.
28/02/2019 | Figure Technologies | USD$65,000,000
Blockchain-based home equity loan startup Figure Technologies has raised $65M in a Series B round backed by Morgan Creek. The round was led by venture capital firms RPM Ventures and DST Global, with Ribbit Capital, DCM Ventures, Digital Currency Group, Nimble Ventures with others also participating.
Mergers & Acquisitions
04/02/2019 | Chainspace | Undisclosed
Facebook has acqui-hired Chainspace.
04/02/2019 | Crypto Facilities | ~$100,000,000
Kraken has acquired UK Exchange Crypto Facilities for at least $100M.
07/02/2019 | CrowdfundX | Undisclosed
Issuance has acquired FinTech marketing firm CrowdfundX.
10/02/2019 | Rosenthal Collins Group |Undisclosed
Bakkt has acquired Rosenthal Collins Group for an undisclosed sum.
13/02/2019 | BEXAM | Undisclosed
Cryptech Works Ltd. has acquired the operations of the Bexam Exchange.
14/02/2019 |StellarX |Undisclosed
Coinsquare has acquired StellarX, a Stellar (XLM)-based zero-fee decentralised payment network for an undisclosed amount.
19/02/2019 | Neutrino | Undisclosed
Coinbase has acquired Neutrino, a blockchain intelligence platform.
28/02/2019 | Ethos |~$4,000,000
Voyager Digital has acquired crypto wallet startup Ethos for approximately $4M in Voyager Digital shares.
Summary
Overall in February, approximately seventeen blockchain companies raised over USD $200M in investment via traditional equity raises. These companies are quite diverse in their industries with Embleema building a blockchain platform for healthcare, Jointer.io building a commercial real estate platform and Thundercore attempting to build a cheaper and faster blockchain platform.
Approximately eight companies were acquired in February, with some big names being involved. Facebook acqui-hired Chainspace researchers who are now part of Facebook’s Blockchain Division, Coinbase acquired blockchain intelligence platform Neutrino and the well-known startup, Ethos, was acquired by Voyager Digital.
Thanks for reading, we hope that you’ll find Capital Chronicles valuable. You can access more data and insights from Brave New Coin. Feel free to share and check back next month for the latest of Capital Chronicles.
Techemy Advisory Team
Disclaimer: Capital Chronicles is provided for informational purposes only and is not intended to provide commercial, financial or legal advice. Nothing in this post constitutes an offer of securities or regulated financial products or financial services to any person.
