Photo Credit To Vilson Frangaj Via Flickr
If you remember #DeleteCoinbase protest which was spreading across Crypto Twitter back in March this year, you might also remember Elliptic. The firm which earlier refutes the claim of Coinbase and denied of enabling the violation user’s financial privacy has recently raised $23 million.
Elliptic Raises $23 million in Series B Funding
Elliptic is a US-based crypto analytical firm that monitors crypto transactions and spots illegal activity and tracks suspected illicit transactions such as money laundering or terror financing.
Just to remind, Elliptic was a technology partner to Coinbase and had appeared on top bulletins with Coinbase due to the exchange’s previous controversial acquisition of blockchain analytics firm Neutrino. The firm’s name was spotted on the allegation that Coinbase is sending data to third party clients such as Elliptic, as a response to which, CEO and co-founder James Smith stated;
“Our exchange clients, including Coinbase, do not provide us with any personally identifiable information about their users. Our clients use our solutions to screen specific transactions for risk […] We only allow our solutions to be used in order to combat financial crime, and do not allow it to be used for marketing, business intelligence, or any other purpose.”
As per the latest report, Elliptic seeks to expand to Japan and Singapore. Accordingly, it has raised $23 million in Series B funding. As per the CEO, Dr. James Smith, the funding gives Elliptic “an excellent foundation for the nest growth stage”.
According to Smith, the new offices in Asian countries will be the base for clients across the Asia-Pacific region. As the firm helps Govt, companies, and corporates to figure out the possible illicit transaction, Smith said;
“We believe that corporations and governments will increasingly seek to issue their own crypto-assets, and we will look to support them on our platform,”
Japan and Bitcoin
Interestingly, the funding was led by famous SBI Holdings which often known as the proponent of Ripple’s underlying products. Other investors include AlbionVC, SignalFire, Octopus Ventures, and Santander Innoventures.
Japan might soon rank higher in terms of countries leading the bitcoin and blockchain adoption. This is quite true if we look at the latest talk happening at FINSUM 2019 mega blockchain event which kicked off today. This 3-day event is organized by Japan’s Financial Services Agency (FSA) and NIKKIE INC at Tokyo wherein Morgan Creek Digital’s Anthony Pompliano (aka Pomp) was a part of today’s conference. During the event, he shared a tweet, stating that Japan’s FCA is a big proponent of Bitcoin and Lightning Network. This is the same event where Elliptic’s new investor SBI Holdings was also the big-name represented by Yoshitaka Kitao.
On the other side, CEO of SBI Holdings Yoshitaka Kitao shared his view on funding Elliptic, He said;
“We are seeing a growing demand for [Elliptic’s] services across our portfolio of crypto-assets related companies. “Our investment in Elliptic is a further commitment to this belief and to SBI Group’s appetite to help build the digital asset-related ecosystem, Yoshitaka Kitao added.
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