Financial conglomerate SBI Holdings Inc. has led a group of investors participating in a Series B, $16.75 million funding round for CoolBitX, a Taiwanese blockchain security company offering services to help crypto-exchanges comply with more stringent international standards for the collection of user information.
With the latest funding round, CoolBitX is now valued at $91 million, Chief Executive Officer Michael Ou said in an interview.
Other participants in the fundraising include Japan's Monex Group Inc., the National Development Fund of Taiwan and South Korean crypto-exchange BitSonic, according to a CoolBitX news release.
SBI Holdings was among investors participating in the Series A $13 million funding round in 2018, according to Gaby Hui, a spokeswoman for the company.
"As one of the early investors in CoolBitX, SBI Holdings is happy to see the breakthroughs made by the CoolBitX team to drive cryptocurrency adoption forward," SBI CEO Yoshitaka Kitao,said in the release.
The investment "shows that investors understand how global regulation and the tools necessary for virtual asset service providers to comply is key for crypto to shed its negative reputation, for institutional money to flow in, and for the industry to grow," Ou said.
CoolBitX provides a service in which a credit card-sized physical wallet called the CoolWallet S can be used to send and receive crypto-tokens. It also offers a software solution that helps virtual asset service providers — firms that deal in digital assets such as bitcoin — comply with new guidelines issued last year by the intergovernmental Financial Action Task Force to combat money laundering.
CoolBitX will use the cash injection to help fund its global corporate expansion beyond the Asia-Pacific region, and to open offices in Japan and South Korea, Ou said.