Chainalysis Raises Funds In Series B Funding For London Office

By Rishma Banerjee

As per recent reports, Chainalysis, the cryptocurrency transaction analysis startup, has raised $30 million in Series B funding. Part of this money will be utilized to open an office in London as well as a research-and-development lab. This is in hopes to expand its presence in the U.K., where it has worked in partnership with companies like Barclays, the High Street bank.

The success of this funding round indicates that investors are still putting their money into the industry in spite of the bear market which has been going on for so long. This round of funding was led by venture capital firm Accel and included additional investments from Benchmark, which had led Chainalysis’ $16m Series A last April.

Accel’s investment is being led by Amit Kumar and Philippe Botteri who will also be representing Accel on Chainalysis’ board of directors.

Michael Gronager, the CEO and co-founder of Chainalysis, said,

“The investment and the timing of it shows that, despite fluctuating prices, there is quite a strong conviction among some very big VCs that this is not a short term play.”

Though concerns have been raised by many people regarding the issue of Brexit, Gronager has repeatedly emphasized the importance of London as a leading fintech hub. Chainalysis, in addition to the upcoming London office, also has establishments in New York, Washington, and Copenhagen. The company will also look into research partnerships and collaborations with universities from London.

Chainalysis’ longstanding relationship with Barclays has been a major mover of in their crypto development quest and has also helped to establish a bank account for Circle, for example.

Gronager said that a growing interest has been noticed from both mid-tier and top-tier banks who want to come in and work with crypto companies, such as exchanges. Gronager said,

 “There are bigger banks outside of the U.K. that want to enter banking relationships with crypto exchanges, essentially following the same procedure as Barclays.”

Chainalysis has also started to support different stablecoins, in order to help providers with proper oversight. He additionally said,

“The anticipation is this will create a lighter touch on how to regulate these,” he told CoinDesk. “So that as well as being able to use them for settling between crypto exchanges, they can be used for transferring funds across the world.”