FalconX Valuation Doubles to $8B Despite Crypto Market Turmoil

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  • Fal­conX CEO Raghu Yarla­gad­da says bear mar­kets are the best time to build up a business
  • The com­pa­ny had raised $210 mil­lion at a $3.75 bil­lion val­u­a­tion last August

Cryp­to plat­form Fal­conX has raised $150 mil­lion in a Series D fund­ing round that has more than dou­bled its val­u­a­tion in under a year — defy­ing the cur­rent cryp­to bear market. 

The Cal­i­for­nia-based com­pa­ny is now val­ued at $8 bil­lion, up from $3.75 bil­lion fol­low­ing its $210 mil­lion Series C raise in August 2021.

“The invest­ment will allow us to fur­ther accel­er­ate growth by look­ing at [merg­er and acqui­si­tion] oppor­tu­ni­ties that add strate­gic val­ue to our exist­ing core offer­ings,” Fal­conX CEO Raghu Yarla­gad­da told Block­works. “We’ll con­tin­ue to expand our prod­uct offer­ing, dou­bling down on our mar­ket-lead­ing reli­able infra­struc­ture and enabling new mar­kets for our insti­tu­tion­al customers.”

Launched in 2018, Fal­conX allows insti­tu­tions to man­age their cryp­to strate­gies through a sin­gle inter­face to exe­cute trad­ing, cred­it and clear­ing. Its cryp­to-as-a-ser­vice offer­ing allows banks, fin­tech firms and invest­ment appli­ca­tions to add dig­i­tal assets to their products.

Yarla­gad­da added in a state­ment that his com­pa­ny is one of the few cryp­to prime bro­ker­ages that does not take on mar­ket risk — mean­ing that Fal­conX is not in con­flict with its clients and their trad­ing strategies.

“In light of recent mar­ket con­di­tions, this is extreme­ly valu­able to our clients who demand a reli­able mar­ket infra­struc­ture provider,” he said.

Sin­ga­pore­an sov­er­eign wealth fund GIC and B Cap­i­tal Group, which has a strate­gic part­ner­ship with Boston Con­sult­ing Group, led FalconX’s lat­est fundrais­ing round. Oth­er par­tic­i­pants were Thoma Bra­vo, Welling­ton Man­age­ment, Adams Street and Tiger Glob­al Management.

“As a tech-first dig­i­tal asset infra­struc­ture plat­form, Fal­conX pro­vides a holis­tic prod­uct offer­ing paired with unpar­al­leled exe­cu­tion that sup­ports over 70 mil­lion trans­ac­tions on a month­ly basis,” B Cap­i­tal Group Gen­er­al Part­ner Rash­mi Gopinath said in a Wednes­day state­ment. “They are well-posi­tioned to lead the ongo­ing insti­tu­tion­al tran­si­tion to dig­i­tal assets for years to come.”

The new fund­ing comes as cryp­to prices have dropped sig­nif­i­cant­ly in recent weeks. Bitcoin’s price was rough­ly $20,400 ear­ly Wednes­day morn­ing, accord­ing to data com­piled by Block­works — down 32% from a month ago. Cryptocurrency’s col­lec­tive mar­ket val­ue has fall­en 30% in that time.

But despite the draw­down, which has led cryp­to firms such as Gem­i­ni, Coin­base and Crypto.com to pause or slow hir­ing efforts, Fal­conX plans to con­tin­ue adding employees.

Open roles include prod­uct man­agers, engi­neers, ana­lysts, traders and a direc­tor of peo­ple for the Amer­i­c­as and Europe. 

Yarla­gad­da told Block­works that bear mar­kets are the best time to build a business. 

“With each mar­ket down­turn, we have emerged sig­nif­i­cant­ly stronger by dou­bling down on prod­uct and tal­ent,” he said. “In this broad­er mar­ket down­turn, we con­tin­ue to see A‑plus tal­ent excit­ed about cryp­to, and we’re excit­ed by the prospect of hav­ing more tal­ent­ed team mem­bers join us.” 

The firm hired for­mer Car­ta chief peo­ple offi­cer and Bloomberg head of tal­ent Suzy Walther as its head of peo­ple in Feb­ru­ary amid a push to fill hun­dreds of roles across engi­neer­ing, mar­ket­ing, human resources and cus­tomer support.

Fal­conX also brought aboard for­mer Pin­ter­est and Google exec­u­tive Jon Kaplan as its head of rev­enue lat­er that month.


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  • Ben Strack
    Ben Strack is a Den­ver-based reporter cov­er­ing macro and cryp­to-native funds, finan­cial advi­sors, struc­tured prod­ucts, and the inte­gra­tion of dig­i­tal assets and decen­tral­ized finance (DeFi) into tra­di­tion­al finance. Pri­or to join­ing Block­works, he cov­ered the asset man­age­ment indus­try for Fund Intel­li­gence and was a reporter and edi­tor for var­i­ous local news­pa­pers on Long Island. He grad­u­at­ed from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Mary­land with a degree in journalism.

    Con­tact Ben via email at [email pro­tect­ed]

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