Paris-based crypto market maker Flowdesk has secured $50 million in a Series B financing round led by Cathay Innovation, a venture capital firm affiliated to Cathay Capital.
The round saw the participation of Cathay Ledger Fund, a €100-million ($110 million) investment fund for early-stage Web3 firms set up by maker of crypto hardware wallet Ledger and Cathay Innovation; as well as several French investment firms including Eurazeo, ISAI, and BPI.
Vienna-based early-stage investor Speedinvest and crypto firm Ripple also joined the round, according to a release on Thursday.
With the fresh funding, Flowdesk plans to apply for licences in Singapore and the US in an attempt to expand its “regulatory coverage”. Meanwhile, the firm also eyes to expand its over-the-counter (OTC) offering, among others.
Flowdesk, which has recently been named as one of the liquidity providers for Grayscale Investments’s bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF), is looking to cash in on the US Securities and Exchange Commission’s landmark decision greenlighting the first US-listed ETFs to track bitcoin.
The move heralds a new era for bitcoin, the world’s largest digital asset that enables both institutional and retail investors to tap the asset without buying it directly.
Besides Grayscale Investments, Flowdesk also served as liquidity provider for the stablecoin of Societe Generale – FORGE (SG-FORGE), a subsidiary of European bank Societe Generale.
2023 was a year that saw the price of Bitcoin skyrocket over 160% in 2023, while ether’s price went up 95% during the same period. Despite the price rally, crypto venture capital funding remained bleak in 2023, when the industry saw only one-third of VC investments logged in 2022, according to a report published by the research arm of crypto investment firm Galaxy Digital.