London-based custodian for digital assets Copper.co has raised a $8 million Series A to grow globally by expanding its commercial team and launching new products.
Institutional investors in this round include international investment firm Target Global, which backed Auto1, Delivery Hero, wefox and Rapyd; LocalGlobe, which is known for successful investments in the likes of Zoopla, Transferwise and Citymapper; and MMC Ventures, which backed Gousto, Interactive Investor and NewVoiceMedia among many others.
This fundraise follows a previous Seed round that saw Copper raise $1.3m in 2018 to build its custody and prime brokerage solutions and onboard institutional and HNW clients. The firm’s Walled Garden now covers 96% of global crypto liquidity and is seeing over £500 million in transactions each month – with that figure growing steadily.
Copper said it will use the funds to develop regional client facing operations in geographies around the world such as North America and Asia.
It will also accelerate the launch of new products that give their institutional clients more investment options.
“Copper was always designed to be a global offering. Since 2017, we have seen many crypto custody solutions emerge that don’t fully meet the needs of institutions. Instead, they have built for an institutional framework that doesn’t exist yet, and is unlikely ever to, leaving institutions discouraged”, said Dmitry Tokarev, Founder and CEO of Copper.
“Our Walled Garden and Prime Brokerage infrastructure truly looks after the security and trading needs of institutions, regardless of their investment strategies and goals. We are seeing volumes increase as our clients see the advantage of our prime brokerage solution, which allows them to make transactions across many trading venues securely and efficiently.
“This venture funding round is a real vote of confidence from investors. Their support will allow us to accelerate our scale up, hiring teams in key regions and introducing new products and services to better meet their needs.”