Revelation On Singapore’s Sovereign Wealth Fund Participation In The $300 Million Coinbase Fundraising Round
A Bloomberg report has been revealed that Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund, GIC Private Limited, was among Coinbase’s investors in last year’s $300 million fundraising round. It is believed that this might have been the first investment by GIC in the cryptocurrency.
Although the Series E round had other investors the involvement of GIC has been confidential until now. Various investors participated in the fundraising round and some of the firms involved include Andreessen Horowitz a popular Silicon Valley firm, Tiger Global Management Wellington Management Y Combinator Continuity and Polychain among others.
The Series E investment venture gave the crypto firm valuation of around $8 million. The fund has over $100 billion in various classes across 40 countries although according to the Sovereign Wealth Institute the figure could be higher up to approximately $390 billion.
Funding round for expansion purposes
Asif Hirji, Coinbase's COO indicated that the round of fundraising spearheaded by Tiger Global management was earmarked for the firm's expansion globally. Similarly, it was to be put into the advancement of utility applications like the planned stablecoin. The company has also indicated that the funds could be invested in the development of features such as cryptocurrency custodial services that can lure institutional investors to Coinbase.
Although Sovereign Wealth Funds are mostly conservative the GIC has nonetheless taken up investments in growing tech ecosystems. From their website, GIC indicate that their investment in technology is not limited to any phase in the lifecycle of the firm and the sovereign wealth fund does direct investment and through external fund managers.
Growing investment in crypto startups
GIC looks for disruptive start-ups in technology and they are focused beyond conventional investments. Coinbase is not the first cryptocurrency that sovereign wealth has invested in because according to Business insider they were among the investors of the $450 million fund for Bitmain when it was plotting its listing in the HKSE.
More investment funds are considering investing in crypto assets and the trend continues to grow. For instance in June last year, the University of Michigan has a $12 billion endowment is said to have invested approximately $3 million in the Andreessen Horowitz crypto fund with the option of further investment. Similarly, Yale University is equally said to have invested in the fund and also backed paradigm's cryptocurrency fund in October last year.