Silbert’s Digital Currency Group Announces Major Fundraise from MasterCard, CIBC, and Others

Barry Silbert, Founder of the recently acquired SecondMarket, announced at Money20/20 that the Digital Currency Group had raised its round of capital.

Digital Currency Group, otherwise known as DCG, was formed when Genesis Global Trading—a bitcoin OTC trading firm—and Grayscale Investments—a digital currency asset management firm that manages Bitcoin Investment Trust (GBTC)—were combined into one entity.

Along with these two companies, Mr. Silbert also combined his diverse portfolio of seed investment in the bitcoin and blockchain space. Some of his early investments include BitPay, Coinbase, itBit, and Xapo.

“Our companies have raised over 70% of venture capital that has been invested in the space if you don’t count the miners,” Silbert said at Money 20/20.

Bain Capital Ventures, Canadian Imperial Bank of Comerce (CIBC), CME Ventures, FirstMark Capital, MasterCard, New York Life, Novel TMT, Oak HC/FT, RRE Ventures, Solon Mack Capital, and Transamerica Ventures are all new investors in DCG.

“I wanted to work with firms who have a long-term perspective, and were willing to explore with us and invest not only money, but real organizational and intellectual capital into building businesses and partnerships that will enable us to unleash value in new, unprecedented ways,” Silbert said in a statement.

DCG is being launched a holding company rather than an investment fund. Silbert believes that this gives the company the necessary flexibility and diversification. “Being structured as a company, versus a fund, allows us to evolve with the industry given our permanent capital base and flexible mandate,” Silbert said in the statement. “It is our view that broad exposure with the optionality to concentrate our focus is a winning strategy.”

Jacob Donnelly is a full-time product manager and freelance journalist covering stocks, business and bitcoin. He runs a weekly digital currency and blockchain newsletter called Crypto Brief.

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