Valkyrie’s fundraising drew a broad group of crypto investors, including Litecoin creator Charlie Lee.
Valkyrie Investments, a digital asset manager and proponent of the Bitcoin (BTC) ETF, has closed a $10 million Series A financing round, showing increasing investor interest in crypto-focused companies.
The financing round included XBTO, BTC Media, UTXO Management, Consolidated Trading, and 10X Capital, in addition to Charlie Lee, a well-known entrepreneur in the cryptocurrency sector.
Former Major League Baseball pitcher CJ Wilson, as well as Tron founder Justin Sun, were among the investors.
Leah Wald, the CEO of Valkyrie and a former World Bank official, said her company is focused on increasing investor access to cryptocurrencies in a “managed, research-driven manner that ultimately provides best-in-class products to all types of investors.”
Litecoin creator Charlie Lee, referring to Wald and Steven McClurg, Valkyrie’s chief investment officer, said:
“Leah and Steven have a great vision for how they want to bring investment opportunities to market, and I couldn’t be happier to support them on this journey.”
Currently, the asset management provides three crypto-focused funds that invest in Bitcoin, Polkadot, and Algorand. Valkyrie submitted an application with the Securities and Exchange Commission, or SEC, in January 2021 to establish a Bitcoin exchange-traded fund. Surprisingly, the SEC has put off making a decision on the proposed fund.
During the BTC price drop, the world’s first Bitcoin ETF added $3 million each day.
As Valkyrie’s recent funding round shows, venture capitalists are becoming confident in crypto companies.
This is despite the fact that in the second quarter, Bitcoin and the wider cryptocurrency market fulfilled the technical criteria of a bear market. While experts are split on Bitcoin’s overall market theme, the more than 50% decline from peak to trough exceeded the technical criteria of a bear trend.
