Komainu closes $25 million in Series A fundraising, to expand institutional custody services

Regulated digital asset custody startup Komainu closed a $25 million Series A fundraising led by Alan Howard of Elwood Asset Management, with additional participants such as Galaxy Digital, NOIA Capital, and Nomura Research Institute (NRI). In addition to these strategic partners, its JV partners, Nomura, digital asset security firm Ledger, and CoinShares, contributed to this funding round.

So far, Komainu has $3 billion in assets under custody and will use the new funds to expand its custody solution and provide “complementary services in the digital asset prime brokerage business” among other services.

With regard to the partnership and future plans Head of Wholesale, at Nomura, Steve Ashley, said in a statement:

Komainu has gone from strength to strength over the past year, capturing growing institutional interest in the digital asset space. These new partners and investors come as Komainu embarks on the next stage of its plan to build a best-in-class digital asset custody platform.

As more institutions show interest in Bitcoin, the market has seen much activity among institutional digital asset custody providers. 

Recently, payments giant PayPal confirmed its decision to acquire crypto custody firm Curv. In the past two weeks, Anchorage raised an $80 million Series C and and hopes to become the preferred partner for challenger and traditional banks. 

Last month, Bank of New York Mellon Corp, which is the largest custodian in the country, decided to hold, transfer, and issue Bitcoins on behalf of asset management clients. As of December 2020, Standard Chartered partnered with Northern Trust to launch Zodia, a crypto custodian for Bitcoin and other assets.