Hedge fund veteran Alan Howard leads $25 million Series A for crypto custodian Komainu

Custody • March 9, 2021, 4:40AM EST
UPDATED: March 9, 2021, 4:45AM EST
theblock

Nomura-backed institutional crypto custodian Komainu has raised $25 million in Series A funding.

The round was led by hedge fund veteran Alan Howard, who also owns crypto-asset manager Elwood Asset Management. Additional participants in the round included Galaxy Digital, NOIA Capital, and Nomura Research Institute.

Established in 2018, Komainu is a joint venture between three firms: Nomura, Ledger, and CoinShares. All three firms also contributed to Series A.

With fresh capital at hand, Saint Helier, Jersey-based Komainu plans to expand globally, support additional assets, and provide services to prime brokerages.

Komainu was launched in June 2020 and currently holds over $3 billion in assets under custody on behalf of institutional investors, including asset managers, corporations, and government agencies.

The Series A comes amid a rally in bitcoin's price as more institutions are investing in the world's first and largest cryptocurrency. Bitcoin is currently trading at around $54,200, according to TradingView.

Hedge fund manager Howard appears to be on a crypto-investing spree. The British billionaire has recently backed several startups in the space, including One River Digital Asset Management and bitcoin payments app Bottlepay.

About Author

Yogita Khatri is a senior reporter at The Block and the author of The Funding newsletter. As our longest-serving editorial member, Yogita has been instrumental in breaking numerous stories, exclusives and scoops. With over 3,000 articles to her name, Yogita is The Block's most-published and most-read author of all time. Before joining The Block, Yogita wrote for CoinDesk and The Economic Times. You can reach her at [email protected] or follow her latest updates on X at @Yogita_Khatri5.

More by Yogita Khatri