Novogratz Finds New Crypto Startup to Invest In

The market wants to see institutional money in crypto, and it seems as famous investor Mike Novogratz is actually doing something about it. The crypto millionaire’s investment firm Galaxy Digital Ventures this time has led a fundraising round for a crypto-lending startup with more than 50 million USD.

Announced on Tuesday, Galaxy Digital together with ConsenSys Ventures and PJC will be investing 52.5 million USD into BlockFi, a startup which allows corporate and retail loans in crypto. They can take as much as 10 million USD, with the startup taking either bitcoin or ether as collateral.

What that essentially means is – businesses that don’t want to sell their crypto, but would like to get their hands on some greens, can take a loan, backed by their crypto holdings.

The company is now looking to expand into other US states, as well as abroad. It also plans to support more cryptocurrencies.

“Galaxy’s investment and decision to make us their exclusive consumer lending partner is a strategic step towards BlockFi delivering large scale credit across the crypto ecosystem,” said Zac Prince, CEO and co-founder of BlockFi.

The company is based in New York City, and currently has 12 people working there. It was founded by Zac Prince, the former senior vice president of Cognical, the company behind the Zibby payment option. This is the second round of funding BlockFi has seen, with the first one bringing in 1.55 million USD from ConsenSys Ventures, SoFi, and Kenetic Capital.

According to Tech Crunch, the company wouldn’t say how much it already lent out to its customers, but Prince did say it’s “seven figures”, with the possibility of hitting eight, “soon enough”.

Meanwhile, In June, Galaxy invested USD 35 million into virtual-reality firm High Fidelity, and USD 15 million in AlphaPoint, a New York firm building out a platform for tokenized assets.

Also, as reported last week, despite a slump in Bitcoin trading volume this year, Grayscale Investments, a fund under Barry Silbert’s Digital Currency Group is crushing its own record in terms of capital inflow, raising almost USD 250 million during the first half of 2018.