EMERGING TECH
EMERGING TECH
EMERGING TECH
Blockchain boost: imToken and Paxos both raise traditional VC funding
Despite a bumpy year so far in the cryptocurrency market, interest in blockchain-related technologies continues to remain strong as two companies, imToken and Paxos Trust Co. LLC, both announced traditional venture capital investments Thursday.
ImToken, a Hangzhou, China-based blockchain company that claims to offer the world’s largest Ethereum wallet, raised $10 million in funding from IDG Capital. The funding will be used to expand the company outside of the Chinese market, starting first with Southeast Asia and then other Asian countries, followed by countries in Africa and finally the U.S.
The company’s wallet currently supports more than 30,000 different digital tokens, has more than 4 million monthly active users and handled $35 billion in pass-through transactions last year, according to TechCrunch. In addition to its Ethereum wallet, the company also provides a service called Tokenlon, an in-app decentralized exchange and 0x, a decentralized mobile app store.
Back across the Pacific, Paxos, a New York City-based “financial technology company delivering pioneering blockchain solutions for global financial institutions,” has raised $65 million from investors, including RRE Ventures and Liberty City Ventures.
Founded in 2012, Paxos is developing a platform based on blockchain technology that provides financial institutions with instantaneous settlements and greater automation, “offering market participants reduced counterparty risk, lower capital requirements and increased operational efficiencies.”
The company has a somewhat strange history, having originally started as a bitcoin exchange called itBit before later abandoning that business to focus on its settlements blockchain platform. That platform was originally designed to settle gold transactions through a partnership with Belgium-based settlement provider Euroclear before that partnership dissolved and the focus shifted to the settlement of equities instead.
Reuters reported that the company has recently sought to revive the cryptocurrency side of its business in a bid to take advantage of an explosion in cryptotrading sparked by a rally in the price of tokens.
“We will use the capital to help grow the business which is broadly our settlement business on the Paxos side and the crypto asset exchange and custodian on the itBit side,” Chief Executive Officer Charles Cascarilla said in a statement.
Image: imToken
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