Cryptocurrency exchange Bakkt completes first round of funding.
According to the CEO of Bakkt, Kelly Loeffler, roughly $183 million has been raised in the first round of funding of the cryptocurrency exchange and liquidity provider.
Bakkt is expected to be the gateway for institutional clients into the crypto ecosystem as it will be the industry’s first institutional grade regulated exchange.
Bakkt will also feature clearing and warehousing services for physical delivery and storage set to cater to institutional clients.
Some specifics:
The funding round was primarily made up of 14 investors.
The investors include:
- Boston Consulting Group
- CMT Digital
- Eagle Seven
- Galaxy Digital
- Goldfinch Partners
- Alan Howard
- Horizons Ventures
- Intercontinental Exchange
- Microsoft’s venture capital arm
- M12
- Pantera Capital
- PayU
- Fintech arm of Naspers
- Protocol Ventures.
(Source: https://medium.com/bakkt-blog/first-capital-raise-739db1bab6d3)
Combined, they were able to raise $182.5 million.
When will they launch?
According to the CEO the official launch date is now up the to regulatory approval process.
The first projection was for December of 2018.
That was subsequently pushed back to January 24th of 2019.
They have completed and filed all the necessary paperwork and are now waiting on regulatory approval.
Bakkt said that they worked with the CFTC through much of 2018 in order to ensure that they create a compliant exchange and expect approval shortly.
On a positive note, customers have continued to be on-boarded as they wait to be green-lighted by regulators.
I expect this to be very good news for bitcoin and crypto prices when it eventually launches.
Some reasons why it will be good can be found here:
Stay informed my friends.
