Crypto custodian Copper secures $196 million in additional funding

The crypto custodian Copper Technologies has obtained $196 million in fresh funding this year, as part of an ongoing series C investment in the business.

The London-based firm raised $181 million from new and existing shareholders as of June, in addition to a convertible loan note of $15 million, according to company filings published this week. The document did not name the investors. A Copper spokesperson declined to comment on the firm's valuation, as the company has yet to formally close the round. 

Luke MacGregor/Bloomberg

Copper, which provides infrastructure for digital assets to institutions such as FTX and State Street, also declared a loss for the business of £14.4 million ($15.95 million) in 2021, a significant widening from the previous year's shortfall of £3.7 million. 

The investment has been a long and drawn-out process for Copper, which was reported by Bloomberg to be seeking a total of $500 million at a valuation of $3 billion in November last year when bitcoin was at an all-time high. Since then cryptocurrency prices have crashed, wiping as much as $2 trillion from the market's total value and reducing appetite for companies in the space. 

"It just generally took longer than we expected to basically make sure that there is a full clarity as to what's going on, and how things are," Copper Chief Executive Dmitry Tokarev said of the fundraising effort in a July interview.

Accel, SoftBank Group, Tiger Global and Barclays are some of the companies that had reportedly considered investing in the round. Accel and SoftBank did not participate in Copper's funding, according to people familiar with the matter. Accel and Tiger Global did not respond to a request for comment, while a spokesperson for Barclays declined to comment.

Copper had previously sought permission to operate its crypto services in the U.K. under the Financial Conduct Authority's anti-money-laundering standards. It gained an extension to its application from the regulator in March, but ultimately withdrew after securing similar approvals in Switzerland a month later. 

The company is raising cash in an increasingly tough market, as venture capitalists soured on investing in crypto startups in recent months. VC firms plugged $4.44 billion into crypto startups in the third quarter, according to data from PitchBook, a 37% decline from the same period a year earlier.