Asia-focused crypto custody provider Hex Trust has raised $88 million in a funding round co-led by Animoca Brands and Liberty City Ventures.
The Series B funding round will be used to scale to Europe and the Middle East and to obtain additional licenses, the company said. Hex Trust currently has over 100 employees across offices in Hong Kong, Singapore and Vietnam.
“From a licensing perspective, we are getting a license in Dubai and we’re studying Europe on this and where to go,” said Hex Trust CEO Alessio Quaglini in an interview. “Operationally, we are looking at opening offices in the Middle East and Europe.”
Crypto custody firms have come to command high values for providing the complex technology required to safeguard digital assets controlled by regulated institutions like banks.
Over the past year, Hex Trust has begun working with high-profile blockchain projects like Algorand, Terra, Tezos and Celo, as well as institutions like the UnionBank of the Philippines, the latter being part of Hex Trust’s integration with IBM’s digital assets division.
Other participants in the funding round included Ripple, Terraform Labs, Morgan Creek, Primavera Venture Partners, LeadBlock Partners, Protocol Labs and Adrian Cheng (CEO of Hong Kong real estate giant New World Development).
“This collaboration [with Animoca] is to bring an institutional-grade platform to the GameFi market,” Quaglini said. “Our infrastructure will be provided to the consumer base in the Animoca Brands ecosystem. So, bringing gamers that don’t know how to use blockchain to true digital asset ownership.”
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Ian Allison is an award-winning senior reporter at CoinDesk. Prior to that, he covered fintech for the International Business Times in London and Newsweek online. He holds ETH.
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