KuCoin has launched a pre-Series B fundraising round of $150 million headed by Jump Crypto. Circle Ventures, IDG Capital, and Matrix Partners were also present at the event.
Following the fundraising round, the exchange’s value soared to $10 billion.
The Seychelles-based corporation will focus on expanding its reach outside centralized trading, according to the official news release. With the help of its investment arms KuCoin Labs and KuCoin Ventures, it hopes to expand into new areas such as Web 3, crypto wallets, GameFi, DeFi, and NFT platforms.
As a result, KuCoin intends to use the community-built public chain – KCC – as an infrastructure to deploy resources on top of it in order to create a decentralized economy.
The increased funds will also go toward improving the exchange’s core trading technology, as well as supporting global regulatory initiatives and beefing up security and risk management systems.
The platform is now worth $10 billion, a huge jump from its early days when it secured $20 million in a Series A round in November 2018. KuCoin CEO Johnny Lyu declared:
“The vote of confidence from prominent investors, including Jump Crypto and Circle Ventures, solidifies our vision that one day everyone will be with crypto. KuCoin is built for all classes of investors, and we believe these new investors and partners will contribute to making KuCoin synonymous with a reliable and trustworthy gateway into crypto space.”
The news comes less than a month after KuCoin Ventures, as well as its NFT marketplace, Windvane, announced the formation of a $100 million NFT-focused fund.
The “Creators Fund” was established with the goal of supporting and incubating early-stage NFT ventures in areas such as art, sports, GameFi, and celebrity. Users will be able to choose and purchase all digital collectibles on KuCoin cross-chain aggregators using the supported blockchains ETH, BSC, and FLOW.
Last year, the business also established a $100 million fund to encourage teams working on metaverse initiatives. As previously stated, the company intends to use its user traffic to promote INO projects.