The parent company of 21Shares, 21. co announced on Tuesday that it had raised $25 million in a funding round led by Marshall Wace. The company is now worth $2 billion.
“With this round of financing, 21. co will continue to drive rapid, targeted growth through first-of-its-kind products, key market expansions, and strategic talent acquisitions,” the company said in a statement.
The company said that after the money is added, 21. co is now “Switzerland’s largest crypto unicorn.”
The funding round comes at a time when cryptocurrencies have dropped a lot so far this year due to rate hikes by the US Federal Reserve and very high inflation, which makes investors want to get rid of riskier assets.
Collab+Currency, Quiet Ventures, ETFS Capital, and Valor Equity Partners all put money into the funding round.
The company said on Tuesday that the new parent company, 21. co.
It said that 21Shares, its biggest subsidiary, is the biggest issuer of cryptocurrency exchange-traded products (ETPs) in the world.
It does this with its platform, Onyx, which is used to issue and run crypto ETPs for the company and others.
It was the first round of funding for the company in two years. It said that by the end of 2021, it had “a nine-figure revenue run rate” and had kept getting money even when markets were bad.
It said that in the year since September of last year, it had gotten $650 million in net new assets and that the total amount of assets it was managing would peak at $3 billion in November of 2021.
“To keep up with this fast business growth, 21. co-added 75% more staff during this time,” it said.
Last month, 21Shares announced that it had hired Sherif El-Haddad as its head of the Middle East. He will be based in Dubai and will help the company grow in the area.
The United Arab Emirates has become a crypto hub because many of the world’s biggest crypto firms have set up shop in Dubai, which is a major business center.
Dubai is also working on rules for the industry.
Abu Dhabi, the capital of the UAE, already has rules in place for the industry.
