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On Tuesday (April 16), Crypto surveillance firm Chainalysis announced that it had raised an additional $6 million in Series B funding from Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group (MUFG), Japan's largest financial institution, and global expansion venture capital firm Sozo ventures.
Chainalysis, which was founded in 2014 by Dr. Michael Gronager (the current Chief Executive Officer), Jan Moller (the current Chief Technology Officer), Jonathan Levin (the current Chief Operating Officer), is a company with two main products—"Chainalysis Reactor" and "Chainalysis KYT"—that are used for investigation and compliance purposes by institutional clients, such as banks and crypto exchanges, as well as governmental bodies from around the world."
As CryptoGlobe reported back in February, Chainalysis "secured a $30 million in a Series B funding round led by Accel" (with additional investment by Benchmark, which led the $16m Series A funding in April 2018). Chainalysis said at the time that it would use some of these funds to open a new office (in London) and an R&D lab in the UK.
This latest $6 million investment by MFUG's wholly owned corporate venture capital subsidiary MUFG Innovation Partners and Sozo Ventures, means that Chainlysis has managed to secure a total of $36 million in Series B funding. This money will be used to fund expansion of its operations in the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region.
Chainalysis's press release says that Chainalysis "has substantially grown its business in Asia Pacific, in lock step with the growth of cryptocurrency in the region," and that in the past year, it has "more than doubled the number of clients it serves in APAC and increased its contracted revenue from clients there by more than 16x." The plan is "to build on this momentum with a physical presence and deeper engagements with entities including Sozo and MUFG, who will provide critical market insights."
Michael Gronager, CEO at Chainalysis, had this to say:
"Cryptocurrency technology is global and inclusive by design. Our business was founded on the belief that in order for the industry to grow, all its stakeholders – governments, financial institutions, and cryptocurrency businesses – must be united in establishing ground truth for the industry. This strategic investment will strengthen our relationships with financial institutions in Asia in particular, and spearhead both our growth and the industry's advancement in an important region."
As for Nobutake Suzuki, President and CEO at MUFG Innovation Partners, he said:
"Chainalysis's compliance technology is important to providing the insight and anti-money laundering controls banks need in order to establish next generation compliance frameworks. Today's announcement signals our joint commitment to growing the cryptocurrency industry in Japan and Asia Pacific more soundly and broadly."
Featured Image Courtesy of Chainalysis