FinTech News
Crypto Trading Platform FalconX Raises $17 Million
Even amid continued lockdowns and economic struggles, the cryptocurrency market has been having a pretty big month. Not only has the price of Bitcoin risen to more than $9,300 but the latest “halvening” also recently occurred as the most famous crypto asset, Bitcoin, continues on towards its 21 million coin max. And then there’s FalconX, which just announced a round of investments it’s received.
This week the company revealed that it had raised $17 million in financing. Among the companies investing in the platform are Accel, Accomplice VC, Coinbase Ventures, Fenbushi Capital, Flybridge Capital Partners, Lightspeed Venture Partners, and Avon Ventures. With the injection of cash, FalconX says it intends to develop and introduce products as well as scale its infrastructure.
FalconX refers to itself as an operating system for trading cryptocurrencies. TechCrunch explains, one of the aspects of the platform that makes it special is that it offers pricing information for assets — something that’s important as some large accounts have proven that they can sometimes control a currency’s movements. Meanwhile, according to FalconX, they’ve has seen $7 billion in global trade volume during just the past 10 months.
Looking at the current state of crypto and digital currency, FalconX co-founder and CEO Raghu Yarlagadda remarked, “We’re entering an era defined by the true digitization of value – whether Bitcoin, Ethereum or new experiments such as Libra, or Digital Yuan – much like what we saw in the early 2000s with the digitization of information on the internet. For open, permissionless and truly global digital assets to be adopted by mainstream institutions, today’s digital financial infrastructure is grossly inadequate.” Turning to his company, Yarlagadda added, “FalconX is building the connective tissue, with seamless price discovery, trade execution, and value transfer. Our technology will provide the infrastructure for the future of digital assets.” As for what made FalconX an attractive investment for Accel, general partner Shekhar Kirani said in a statement, “FalconX demonstrated exceptional growth with institutional counterparties through their focus on technology and reliability during volatile market conditions. They’ve proven themselves at scale without compromising on enterprise-grade security and high compliance standards – capturing a tremendous opportunity to serve the next generation of institutions looking to enter the digital asset space.”
The recent success of FalconX is a testament to the growing popularity of cryptocurrencies among institutional investors. Plus, with these newly-acquired funds, it seems they’ll be able to further expand their offerings and reach. So while they might not have the same brand recognition as Coinbase or other crypto trading tools, FalconX could end up making just as big of an impact in the long run.
