Digital Currency Group, a pioneer in the crypto industry, has closed the significant secondary investment phase driven by SoftBank, Japan. It is noteworthy that the CEO of the group did not sell off any of his stocks in the last round. DCG is the parent company of numerous significant companies in the crypto industry. It has backed more than 200 businesses in the crypto space including Genesis and CoinDesk. The company is reported to be in profit and reach annual revenue of $1 bn.
Around $700 mn worth of shares were sold to Alphabet, Google’s parent company, which made the DCG value up to reach $10 bn. Alphabet raised its investment in DCG to reach around USD 100mn, through CapitalG. The company’s general partner mentions that the crypto space is as powerful as the internet domain and mentioned DeFi to be an interesting field. Earlier, Google had invested in Robinhood, a US trading app.
On Monday, DCG announced that with the help of its employees and subsidiaries, the group has been able to bag reputed shareholders like SoftBank, GIC, Emory etc. The founder and CEO of the company mentioned that this was not for raising the capital but for giving initial investors an opportunity of profit-booking. However, the shareholders chose to sell off their stake partially and not fully. And the founder/CEO who owns 40% of the stake sold none.
Like Ripple and Circle, DCG is one of the significant players in the private domain. The company hints that although the option of IPO is not completely dismissed it is not an immediate plan. According to its CEO, the basic reason behind going public is the need for liquidity and the company has no such requirements. However, the company do plan to convert its Bitcoin Trust into ETF.
