Crypto company Anchorage raises $80 million after getting federal banking charter

NelsonG · February 25, 2021

Anchorage has raised an $80 million Series C funding round led by GIC, also known as Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund. Andreessen Horowitz, Blockchain Capital, Lux and Indico are also participating in today’s funding round.

The thinking behind this funding round is quite simple. Some companies, such as Tesla or Square, have recently chosen to invest in cryptocurrencies. They’re converting a small portion of their cash balance into cryptocurrencies. Some investors choose to invest in companies that help you add cryptocurrencies to your cash balance — Anchorage is one of them.

The startup originally offered a custody solution. It lets you keep your cryptocurrencies safe for you so that you don’t have to take care of the wallets and their public and private keys. But more recently, Anchorage received a federal banking charter, turning it into a digital asset bank.

Getting a thumbs-up sign from regulators should definitely help when it comes to confidence. Institutional investors are looking for trusty crypto partners to dip their toes into the crypto waters.

In addition to custody, Anchorage now offers several financial products, such as staking, crypto lending, etc. In other words, it wants to become a one-stop shop for institutional investors.

Interestingly, Anchorage also wants to become a crypto-banking-as-a-service startup. The startup thinks it could become the preferred crypto partner for both challenger banks and traditional banks.