European Blockchain Unicorn Bitfury Completes $80 Million Private Placement

The Bitfury Group, the world’s leading full-service blockchain technology company, has closed an $80 million USD private placement with global institutional and corporate investors.

The private placement was led by Korelya Capital, the European growth capital firm backed by Korean digital giant Naver Group. The placement was joined by investors such as Macquarie Capital, Asian financial institution Dentsu Inc., European investment company Armat Group, European fund managers Jabre and Lian Group, special situations investment firm Argenthal Capital Partners, insurance groups MACSF and Foyer, and Galaxy Digital, a specialized digital asset merchant bank led by Mike Novogratz. iTech Capital, an Eastern European tech specific private equity firm and historical investor in Bitfury, also took part in the placement.

European technology investment bank Bryan, Garnier & Co. advised the company on the private placement.

“2018 has been a year of incredible expansion for Bitfury. This private placement reflects our achievements, and it recognizes our ability to address adjacent market segments in high-performance computing, including in emerging technologies like artificial intelligence (AI),” said Valery Vavilov, CEO and co-founder of Bitfury. “The institutionalization of blockchain and cryptocurrencies, partnered with the opportunity of these emerging technologies, is a natural expansion opportunity that Bitfury will build on — in 2019 and beyond.”

George Kikvadze, executive vice chairman of Bitfury, said the company’s successful private placement was a result of investors’ belief that the company is well positioned to lead the industry into another period of strong growth. “With a half billion dollars in revenues, Bitfury is the leading blockchain B2B global technology infrastructure provider at the corporate and government level. This private placement will take our corporate governance to the next level, broaden our financial strategic options, and ideally position us for our next phase of growth as the market matures,” Kikvadze said.

“We are joining Bitfury as a lead investor at an incredibly exciting time for both the company and the blockchain ecosystem,” said Antoine Dresch, co-founder and managing partner of Korelya Capital. “Bitfury has grown from a small startup to the largest western blockchain unicorn, equipped with worldclass leadership and expertise, consistently delivering innovative solutions across the entire blockchain ecosystem,” said Dresch.

An industry pioneer, Bitfury provides high-performance computing technologies and processing capabilities, and designs some of the most advanced software solutions for governments and corporations to deploy real-life blockchain solutions. In 2018, the company launched its sixth generation of chip design, the Bitfury Clarke ASIC, as well as a new series of high-performance computing servers, the Bitfury Tardis. Both products are significantly improving the performance of Bitfury’s unique offering, the Bitfury BlockBox, in a competitive market for transaction processing and high-performance computing hardware.

The high security requirements of public blockchains have raised concerns about energy consumption, and in this area Bitfury has led the ecosystem in energy transition. Bitfury is committed to operating its datacenters on renewable energy. Bitfury is also the world leader in immersion cooling technology, a new high-performance computing solution that allows for significant reduction of datacenter electricity use.

Bitfury is a global leader in blockchain software capabilities.The team leading the company’s blockchain framework, Exonum, recently announced a new partnership for blockchain-based patents and, earlier in 2018, expanded its land-titling blockchain pilot to the country of Bermuda.

Beyond serving as an advocate and thought leader for broad institutional adoption through the World Economic Forum and its founding of the Global Blockchain Business Council, Bitfury also this year launched Crystal Blockchain, a blockchain analytics platform for law enforcement and financial institutions that provides comprehensive analytics to support AML/KYC on blockchain and cryptocurrencies. Bitfury is also one of the world’s leading contributors to the Lightning Network.

Mike Novogratz, CEO & Founder of Galaxy Digital said, “We are excited to partner with Bitfury, a leading solutions provider in blockchain and Bitcoin. We are impressed with Bitfury’s unparalleled team, as well as the company’s vision, technical expertise and global reach, all of which are essential to advancing the underlying bitcoin ecosystem.”