In a blog post released this morning, Coinbase has announced that it has raised $300 million in its latest funding round at a valuation of $8 billion.
The equity raise, led by Tiger Global Management, with participation from Y Combinator Continuity, Wellington Management, Andreessen Horowitz, Polychain and others, is its first since 2017.
The announcement noted that the company will be using the funds to accelerate adoption, expand their crypto offerings, build new utility applications for the space, and make it easier for institutions to participate.
Asiff Hirji, President and COO of Coinbase explained in the post, “ We see tremendous promise in crypto to build the next great phase of the internet (often referred to as Web 3), which has the power to put control back in the hands of consumers, unleash a new era of innovation, and offer greater access to economic opportunities to more people around the world.”
Hirji added, “We see Coinbase’s growth as validation that the ecosystem will only continue to grow in size, influence and impact?—?ultimately ushering in a more open financial system for the world.”
Fortune also hinted at another potential fundraising round which would offer an additional $200 million or more in common stock. Fortune’s source explained, however, that round would be used specifically to allow employees and early investors to cash in their shares and would not contribute to the overcall capital raised by the company.
Is Coinbase really preparing to go public?
The cash raise reinforces rumors of Coinbase’s intentions of going public with an $8 billion valuation recently teased by CNBC’s Ran Neuner.
Though Coinbase has not confirmed idea of an IPO, moves into the institutional space, including its high-profile acquisition of Keystone Capital, which allowed the company to become a regulated broker, suggest the company is getting particularly serious about participating in Wall Street happenings.
Additionally, Coinbase is poised to post over $1.3 billion in revenue in 2018, according to documents reviewed by Bloomberg, placing it among some of the world’s top startups. Though the company is set to post only $90 billion in revenue in the third quarter, it is aiming to wrap up the year with a strong finish, estimating that 80 percent of the revenue will come from consumers, 15 percent from institutional clients and 5 percent from undisclosed sources.
It’s not the first round of rumors of a Coinbase IPO, either.
Last December, Asiff Hirji noted, “It is certainly in the interest of our investors…and the most obvious path of Coinbase is to go public at some point, but there’s a lot for us to do between now and then, whenever that date is.”
So, I guess the real question here is: has Coinbase done what they needed to do to go public?
By Michael Kern via Crypto Insider
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