Crypto Exchange Kraken Aims at $10 Billion Valuation: Report

Cryptocurrency exchange Kraken is seeking a fresh round of funding to expand its business, financial outlet Bloomberg reported yesterday. The exchange looks to value its business at over $10 billion—or double that of its current valuation.

Sources familiar with the matter said Kraken is speaking to executives of financial services giant Fidelity and technology venture fund Tribe Capital, among others, adding the business could increase its valuation to as much as $20 billion based on investor demand.

That amount is over five times larger than Kraken's previous fundraising round in 2019. It raised over $100 million at a $4 billion valuation at the time, shunning the traditional venture capital path to pursue the investment from thousands of individual accredited investors instead.

Kraken makes money by charging a transaction fee for each trade made on its platform. Users can also “margin” trade on the exchange—borrowing additional funds to place bigger bets—at a higher trading cost. However, as a private business, Kraken has not released its revenues or profits in the public domain.

Founded in 2011, Kraken is one of the oldest and longest-running crypto businesses. It processes over $2.4 billion in trading volumes daily, as per markets tool CoinGecko, and offers 53 cryptocurrencies over 214 trading pairs to clients.

Kraken’s interest in raising more money comes on the back of fellow crypto exchange Coinbase’s filing for a direct listing. The latter’s S-1 filing was made public yesterday, revealing the business made over $322 million in profits in 2020 on a revenue of $1.1 billion.