Japan's SBI to lead Series B for US bitcoin exchange Kraken
SBI Investment, the VC arm of Japan's SBI Holdings, has agreed to lead a Series B round for US-based bitcoin exchange Kraken.
Financial terms of the investment have not been disclosed, but a post to Kraken's blog referred to SBI's contribution as a "multi-million dollar deal." The company plans to use the funding to scale up its business with a view to entering additional markets worldwide.
Launched in 2011, Kraken claims to be the world's biggest bitcoin exchange by transaction volume and liquidity in the euro market. Its platform allows users to trade bitcoin and other digital assets for euros, US dollars, yen, pounds and Canadian dollars.
In 2014, the company launched in Japan, following a $5 million Series A round led by Hummingbird Ventures. The same year, Japanese regulators selected Kraken to help creditors of defunct Tokyo-based bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox to investigate missing bitcoin and to assist with the distribution of the company's remaining assets.
SBI's investment comes just weeks after Kraken bought Coinsetter and Cavirtex, bitcoin exchanges based in the US and Canada, respectively. The company is trying to increase its focus on the North American market, after concentrating up to now on overseas opportunities.
This is not the first investment by SBI in the world of virtual currency. Last year the firm participated in a JPY274 million ($2.28 million) round for Japanese start-up Orb, the developer of an authentication technology to reduce processing time for updates to blockchains used by online currencies.
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