Hashkey Group, which runs one of the two licensed crypto exchanges in Hong Kong, has joined the unicorn club after completing a nearly $100 million round amid renewed optimism in the rattled digital assets market.
Hashkey said on Tuesday that the Series A round valued the six-year-old startup at more than $1.2 billion. Joining the round were existing shareholders as well as new investors, Hashkey said. OKX Ventures, the investment arm of crypto exchange OKX, is one of the lead investors, according to people familiar with the matter. Hashkey declined to disclose investors’ information; OKX Ventures declined to comment.
The crypto firm will use the funds to expand its “Web3 ecosystem” and diversify products of its licensed business in Hong Kong, according to a statement.
Hashkey’s announcement comes less than a week after the much-anticipated exchange-traded funds that invest directly in bitcoin started trading on U.S. exchanges. The ETFs were hailed by the crypto industry as a watershed moment that would finally allow mainstream investors to buy and sell the world’s biggest cryptocurrency as easily as stocks. Their debut also brought hopes to crypto startups that have been facing a funding drought after the epic collapses of major crypto firms like FTX and Terraform Labs shattered investor confidence.
Launched in 2018, Hashkey has businesses spanning crypto trading, venture capital investment, asset management and blockchain infrastructure. The startup has been capitalizing on the Hong Kong government’s ambition to turn the Asian financial center into a crypto hub, which has recently been hurt by a scandal involving local crypto exchange JPEX that allegedly defrauded investors of at least $200 million.
In August, Hashkey became one of the two firms in Hong Kong that received approval from regulators to offer retail crypto trading services under the city’s new digital asset regime. The company said its crypto trading app has since then garnered more than 155,000 registered users in the city of 7 million, with a daily average trading volume of $630 million over the past 30 days as of Tuesday. According to tracker Coingecko, Hashkey’s exchange had a spot trading volume of about $13.6 million in the past 24 hours as of Tuesday afternoon.
Hashkey is a rare unicorn startup from Hong Kong, which is better known for its family-controlled property giants. Other startups that hit the unicorn status in Hong Kong include blockchain gaming company Animoca Brands and billionaire Chow Shing Yuk’s logistics giant Lalatech.
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