Digital asset bank Sygnum has reached unicorn status after raising $58 million amid a rise of venture capital funding in the crypto sector.
The round, which was led by Bitcoin-focused Fulgur Ventures, put the Switzerland-based startup’s valuation at over $1 billion. The deal comes about a year after it raised $40 million in a round led by asset manager Azimut that valued it at $860 million.
The fresh funding puts Sygnum’s total capital raised at over $200 million and will be used to fuel several initiatives including European expansion and the launch of its regulated presence in Hong Kong.
Appetite for crypto rallied in 2024 off the back of Donald Trump’s re-election and US approval of dedicated exchange-traded funds. VC investments have followed, with global deal value returning to growth for the first time since 2021.
Macroeconomic challenges and high-profile failures such as that of crypto exchange FTX had depressed interest in crypto startups after 2021’s peak, but investor opinion is shifting.
The arrival of traditional financial institutions in the market has lent the space legitimacy among more mainstream investors and also brought a much larger customer base than digital asset-only outfits.
The Securities and Exchange Commission’s greenlight of Bitcoin spot ETFs in January led to a flurry of activity, with the funds’ total net assets reaching $129 billion by the end of the year.
PitchBook senior analyst Robert Le estimates that the crypto market will surpass $18 billion in annual investment in 2025, with multiple quarters exceeding $5 billion, according to PitchBook’s 2025 Enterprise Technology Outlook. This would represent an increase of nearly 70% from 2024, although it would remain well below 2021’s record of $31.3 billion.
While the outlook for the global crypto markets looks brighter, Europe may well be left behind if the US’s attitude toward digital assets becomes friendlier under the new administration.
Unlike the US and Asia, VC funding for European crypto startups suffered a third consecutive year of decline in 2024, reaching $1.9 billion compared to $2.8 billion the year prior.
The arrival of Markets in Crypto-Assets regulation—which provides unified rules for the EU’s crypto market and fully came into effect earlier this year—will hopefully spur activity by providing unified rules for the crypto. But Sygnum may be one of the few European startups to benefit from the anticipated global crypto boom.
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