Kaiko completes US$110 million in Series B financing, leading global investment by S & P

S&P Global led the investment in cryptographic data provider Kaiko, and the total Series B financing has expanded to US$110 million.

S&P Global, a world-renowned market analysis and rating agency, recently completed its strategic investment in cryptographic data provider Kaiko. The move expanded Kaiko's total Series B financing to US$110 million. As the company works to build the underlying data infrastructure for tokenized capital markets, this financing marks a further consolidation of its position in the industry.

Multi-party financial institutions participate in strategic investments

This round of financing is led by S & P Global, with the participation of BNP Paribas, Coinbase Ventures, Nasdaq Ventures, Royal Bank of Canada, Stellar and a number of other financial and cryptocurrency companies. Previous shareholders Anthemis, Point Nine and Revaia also participated in the financing.

Kaiko said the newly raised funds will be mainly used to support its existing market data business and expand the data infrastructure of the on-chain capital market. Currently, banks and other financial institutions are testing tokenized securities, settlement systems and blockchain-based financial products.

It is worth noting that new investors have formed a "Strategic Industry Working Group" chaired by Kaiko, which focuses on providing data and infrastructure solutions for the tokenized market. As financial assets are increasingly migrating towards blockchain networks, the move is designed to address the industry's need for standardized data and infrastructure.

Financing History and Valuation

This expanded Series B round of financing is based on the US$53 million financing completed in June 2022, when Eight Roads led the investment and Revaia and existing investors Alven, Point Nine, Anthemis and Underscore participated. At that time, Kaiko's success in obtaining this funding attracted much attention at a time when digital asset prices were falling and the crypto market was under pressure.

Although the latest financing introduced financial institutions from diverse backgrounds-covering areas such as market data, banking, exchanges, blockchain infrastructure and capital markets-Kaiko did not disclose the company's specific valuation, nor did it clearly state the respective shares of investment from S & P's global and other investors.

Expand product matrix through acquisitions and consolidations

Kaiko has been building a product system around institutional-level crypto pricing, liquidity, indices and market information in recent years. Its expansion strategy includes acquisitions and integrations with companies that provide digital asset infrastructure to financial institutions such as banks.

• November 2024:Kaiko acquired index provider Vinter, a key step in its entry into digital asset indices and European exchange-traded products. This is also Kaiko's largest and third major acquisition to date, and specific financial terms have not been disclosed.
• April and second half of 2022: successively acquired quantitative data company Kesitys and Napoleon Index, a subsidiary of CoinShares.
• Recent News: The company also acquired DeFi infrastructure provider Cometh and U.S. digital asset data company Amberdata, further broadening the coverage of its data and technology businesses.

Currently, Kaiko provides data covering more than 150 exchanges and agreements, providing comprehensive market intelligence to its institutional clients.

S & P Global Deepening Cooperation: Building a Digital Asset Benchmark

S & P Global's investment in Kaiko is not an isolated incident, but a deepening of existing cooperation between the two parties. Previously, Kaiko has partnered with S&P Dow Jones Indices on blockchain-based benchmarks and crypto indices.

Cathy Clay, CEO of S & P Dow Jones Indices, said: "As digital assets accelerate, S & P Global is investing in the future, and this investment highlights our strong commitment."

Earlier this month, the two companies jointly launched the "S&P Kaiko Digital Assets Index", consolidating their crypto index products into a unified co-branded series. In addition, the cooperation between the two parties also extends to the tokenization field of traditional financial benchmarks. In April this year, S & P Dow Jones Indices and Kaiko announced plans to tokenize the iBoxx U.S. Treasury Index and deploy it on the Canton Network network.

In this project, the index runs through smart contract infrastructure, carrying functions such as index data, intellectual property rights, licensing conditions, fees and access control. The arrangement is designed to allow developers to use the benchmark in blockchain-based financial products while retaining the control needed by institutional investors. The Canton Network, where the project is located, is also a platform for other financial institutions to explore tokenized government securities and institutional clearing infrastructure.

Institutional products begin to use Kaiko data as a pricing source

Kaiko data is gradually being adopted as an underlying pricing source by mainstream institutional products. For example, Canton Coin ETP, which Bitwise listed on Deutsche Börse Xetra in May, tracks the Kaiko CANTO reference rate LDNLF index with an annual management fee of 0.85%.

In addition, Kaiko has also established a partnership with Taurus, an institutional digital asset infrastructure provider. An integration project in 2025 will make Kaiko's pricing and liquidity information available through the Taurus platform, expanding the customer reach of its digital asset infrastructure. Taurus then continued to expand the blockchain network supported by its technology, completing an 18-month Hedera integration in August this year, providing custody, pledge, token issuance, node infrastructure and smart contract deployment to banks and regulated agencies. services.

Canton Ecology and Industry Trends

Kaiko's newly established "Strategic Industry Working Group" brings together a number of companies that have already established positions in the field of digital assets or tokenized financial infrastructure. Among them, the participation of the Canton Foundation closely connects the group with the Canton Network. The network has become an important platform for financial institutions to test securities, collateral, repo markets and settlement use cases.

The activities of the Canton Network have extended to the government bond market. Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group is participating in discussing the online application of Japanese government bonds repurchase transactions, while another industry group is studying issues such as tokenization of Japanese government bonds (JGBs), stablecoin settlement, T+0 processing and round-the-clock market access.

Large financial institutions are also injecting capital into the network. Digital Asset, the company behind Canton, completed a $355 million financing led by Andreessen Horowitz in June this year, with participants including Citadel Securities, Apollo, BNP Paribas, CME Ventures, Coinbase Ventures, HSBC, Opver and the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority.

Kaiko said the latest investment will support its core market data operations and provide financial support for the development of new data infrastructure for on-chain capital markets. As of now, the company has not announced the deployment schedule of new funds or the specific valuation of this round of expanded financing.