Leading cryptocurrency investment company, Digital Currency Group (DCG), is reportedly selling shares in a $700 million secondary round which values the company at $10 billion. Digital Currency Group is the parent company of many multi-million crypto firms, including Grayscale, CoinDesk, Genesis Capital, and recently founded mining company, Foundry Services.
A secondary round is one that allows early investors to sell shares to new backers who hope to make a profit from exiting in future rounds or when the company goes public. The latest DCG round is being led by SoftBank with participation from other notable investors such as Google’s Capital G and Ribbit Capital.
DCG subsidiary, Grayscale operates one of the industry’s largest institutional management funds with over $44 billion in assets under management. Just last month, the firm filed with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to convert its Bitcoin Trust product into an ETF.
Commenting on their latest fundraise, DCG founder and CEO Barry Silbert noted how the company has become a “proxy” for investors seeking exposure to the crypto market. This description is noteworthy since Digital Currency Group holds investments in some 200 crypto startups, excluding those that are directly under the DCG umbrella.
With the cryptocurrency space looking ripe for mainstream adoption, owning Grayscale shares gives these institutional investors exposure to the industry without having to directly hold crypto assets.
If successful, the $700 million deal will be one of the largest for a crypto-related company, coming well ahead of the $450 million which FTX raised late month.
