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Liquid, a cryptocurrency trading platform launched by Quoine last September, has announced the first close of its ongoing Series C funding.
In its official release, Liquid said that it has achieved unicorn status with this latest round of funding, which puts company valuation at more than US$1 billion. The latest round has been led by investment firm IDG Capital, with participation from cryptocurrency mining giant Bitmain Technologies.
"Japan is one of the leading nations in putting crypto industry under proper regulations, and Liquid Group has proven itself to be the exemplary player within such compliant rules. This is a very important and unique moat amid global competition,” Bitmain Co-founder Jihan Wu said.
Regulated by the Japan Financial Services Agency (FSA), Liquid has previously raised more than US$20 million in venture funding from leading Japanese investment firms JAFCO, SBI, B Dash Ventures, Mistletoe, and ULS Group. In 2017, it raised more than US$100 million in a pre-discounted ICO raise, which was the first regulated ICO to be done in Japan.
Liquid said that it will use the proceeds from the ongoing Series C funding to drive global expansion, product development of the core trading exchange business and entering into the security token market.
"This first round of Series C funding from our two highly respected investors, IDG Capital and Bitmain, puts us in an incredibly strong position to make a global impact in 2019,” Liquid CEO Mike Kayamori said.
Liquid is the latest addition to IDG's current portfolio of crypto investments, which include Coinbase, Ripple, Bitmain and Kakao's crypto unit. The deal also marks the latest investment for Bitmain this year into a regulated digital asset trading platform, following their investment into ErisX.
