Crypto exchange platform KuCoin has raised $150m at a new valuation of $10 billion in a pre-Series B funding round led by Jump Crypto. The funding round saw the participation of other investors namely Matrix Partners, IDG Capital, and Circle Ventures.
The new funds will be used to fuel the exchange’s ambitions into broadening its web3 ecosystem, the company said on Tuesday. The plan is to widen the portfolio of its crypto wallets, GameFi, DeFi, and NFT platform and DAOs, its CEO Johnny Lyu said.
“This is how everyone is brought into the ecosystem, and the value of the ecosystem, in turn, depends on the size and loyalty of these participants,” he said adding that “This concept is essentially why we raised this round, web3 is about openness, and we want to build KuCoin into an open ecosystem and an open system needs to bring many friends on board. The world of crypto is so new that we want to make sure we can leverage all sources of information to guide our decision making, and these prominent investors can keep us updated on the latest trends.”
The funding round comes after a Series A funding round that was done in 2018. As of November 2018, after its Series A, the exchange was valued at $100 million. KuCoin has done tremendously well over these last few years. It currently has more than 18 million users across 200 countries and is one of the biggest platforms in terms of daily SPOT trading volume.
KuCoin’s involvement in web3 isn’t exactly new. The exchange has been exploring the web3 space and opportunities for some time now.
The exchange also has an investment arm with which it makes strategic investments. Its investment arm is called KuCoin Ventures and was launched late last year. The company’s CEO mentioned that the investment arm is doing well.
The exchange competes with crypto exchange platforms known to be global brands such as Binance, Coinbase, FTX, Crypto.com, etc. Per CEO Johnny Lyu, making high-quality potential projects available is one of the exchange’s strategies for staying in the frontlines. “As you can see, KuCoin, as the home of hidden gems, not only keeps track of real-time hot sectors in the industry but also deeply researches potential projects in various sectors all the way, even if it is a small or mid-cap token at a certain stage. For example, we have listed many new projects in the world premiere way no matter through the normal listing or KuCoin Spotlight, KuCoin BurningDrop, in which many projects are turned out to be very high-quality and potential after a period of development. The premise of guaranteeing its huge potential and quality is that we have professional, all-around, and strict related processes.”
Over the years, the platform has seen an increase in the demand for centralized services but KuCoin says it is committed to users who wish to take advantage of decentralized services. “We noticed that some users would prefer to use DEX because it can be directly integrated with the wider crypto native ecosystem. Actually, we are exploring and developing decentralized products like the NFT marketplace – Windvane. In addition, KCC, jointly built by members of the KuCoin community and KCS fans, will also be an important aspect for KuCoin to build a decentralized ecosystem, with DEX and other protocols such as lending and stablecoins are building on it. We also have a P2P service for users who wish to convert fiat currencies to digital assets with the lowest fees and a high level of security,” KuCoin’s CEO said.
Like other exchange platforms, KuCoin is not exempted from regulatory brouhahas. It says it is ramping up efforts to be in line with global regulation while investing hugely in security and risk management systems.
“KuCoin provides a comprehensive platform of crypto services to a global audience, which is one of the many reasons we’re proud to lead this round. We are pleased to support the company as it continues to grow and expand its offerings in futures and margin trading, lending, staking, and passive yield generation to support the growth of web 3.0 and the crypto markets,” Tak Fujishima, Head of Asia at Jump Crypto, in a statement.
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