Galaxy Digital Venture Leads $52 Million Blockfi Fundraiser
Galaxy Digital is a merchant bank that was founded by Michael Novogratz, renown bitcoin investor and president of the Fortress Investment Group.
Galaxy Digital Ventures LLC was announced as the leader in a $52.5 million fundraising round for crypto-backed lending platform, Blockfi.
The founder of the bank stated that: “We’re excited to partner with BlockFi and jointly lead the way for financial institutions to participate in crypto investing strategies,” adding “A robust lending market is a keystone for financial systems and BlockFi’s institutional approach and deep lending expertise were key drivers in our decision to partner with them.”
Chris Ferraro, the bank’s head of principal investments, is now a member of Blockfi’s board of directors. He said: “BlockFi has differentiated itself in the lending business with capital cost and scale, which will help them raise incremental institutional capital as demand grows. We believe BlockFi’s risk management lens, regulatory approach, and marketing capabilities position the firm to be the market leader.”
Zac Prince, CEO and co-founder of Blockfi said “Galaxy’s investment and decision to make us their exclusive consumer lending partner” as comprising “a strategic step towards BlockFi delivering large-scale credit across the crypto ecosystem.”
He added that “The support we’ve seen from existing clients and investors highlights the strong demand for leveraging Bitcoin and Ether for low-cost USD loans. We look forward to expanding our services to support more cryptocurrencies and geographic markets in the near future.”
Galaxy Digital invested in June, $15 million into Alphapoint Corp, a company that wants to provide asset tokenization services to institutions. Mr. Novogratz said: “We are in the early stages of a fundamental transformation in financial markets due to the digitization of assets. We are excited to partner with AlphaPoint as we continue to help drive this revolutionary change in digital markets.”
