Crypto Asset Manager Valkyrie Raises $11M in Strategic Funding

Valkyrie Investments – which had $1.2 billion in assets under management at the end of the last quarter – has raised $11.15 million in a strategic funding round that included traditional Wall Street players BNY Mellon (BK), Wedbush Financial Services and the venture-capital arm of crypto exchange Coinbase (COIN) among the backers.

Nashville, Tenn.-based Valkyrie offers eight protocol trusts, a decentralized finance (DeFi) hedge fund, three Nasdaq-listed exchange-traded funds (ETF) and a protocol treasury management business. Last month, Valkyrie’s XBTO Bitcoin Futures Fund won approval from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

“We really weren’t anticipating raising any capital right now,” Valkyrie co-founder and Chief Investment Officer Steven McClurg told CoinDesk in an interview, noting that the firm initially declined investment offers. “It was a little bit less about the money and more about the strategic partnerships.”

Other participants in the funding included merchant bank SenaHill Partners, venture capital fund Belvedere Strategic Capital and ClearSky, one of the largest hedge funds for carbon credits. Valkyrie also expanded its global partnerships with the participation of Singapore-based Zilliqa Capital (ZIL) and Taiwan-based C-Squared Ventures.

The fresh capital will help Valkyrie continue to build out its technology infrastructure in the hopes of bringing more institutional investors into the digital asset space. The company will also invest in staking and mining tools, said McClurg, because Valkyrie runs the master nodes and validators for many of its funds. McClurg noted existing third-party staking services don’t offer the necessary institutional-grade reporting.

Read more: Valkyrie Launches Avalanche Trust for TradFi Exposure to AVAX Token