Crypto data firm The TIE raises $9 million in Series A funding round

The TIE, a crypto information services provider, has raised $9 million in a Series A funding round.

The funding round was led by Blizzard, with participation from executives at Golden Tree Asset Management, NYDIG, Hudson River Trading, Republic Capital, Gemini Frontier Fund and Nexo, among others. The round gave The TIE a post-money valuation of $100 million, the firm said. 

The information and data services space has attracted significant funding in recent months, as investors try to make sense of the flood of crypto-related information. Recent rounds include Lukka's $110 million round in January and Dune Analytics' $69.42 million round last month. Both firms scored unicorn valuations as a result. 

The TIE's core product is the SigDev Terminal, which provides market, company, and news data on a single platform. With the new funding, the firm aims to expand three verticals: institutional solutions, data redistribution, and token relations.

“We believe this is a market where there’s so much information out there, it’s not possible to do everything yourself. We’ve built a super modular application for institutions,” Joshua Frank, co-founder and CEO of The Tie, told The Block.

Where Frank thinks The TIE stands out is its focus on workflow and institutional investors. “Our average client is around $2 billion AUM. Our clients tend to be very, very large,” he said.

Right now, the most popular function on the terminal is the firm's news data.

“Our bread and butter is real-time news,” said Frank. “Real-time FT filings, or real-time updates from tokens, and updates from 2000 regulatory bodies and court cases. Our technology can tag and categorize that information. Our tech is able to discern in real-time what that info is about and how significant it is."

The TIE also offers incubation for crypto projects, including Avalanche, through its Labs offering, which helps with public relations and marketing strategy using data sets and pattern recognition analytics.

“TIE’s SigDev Terminal has quickly become a critical piece of crypto’s institutional infrastructure stack, delivering reliable, quality information that empower the best shops to turn strategy into performance," John Wu, President of Ava Labs, said in a statement. Wu will be joining The TIE’s board, the firm announced Monday.