Messari raises $21 million in Series A funding round
Crypto market intelligence firm Messari has raised $21 million from investors in a Series A funding round.
The round was led by the venture capital firm of billionaire Steve Cohen, Point72 Ventures, marking the firm’s first public foray into the crypto space. However, it is unclear whether Cohen had spent his own money on digital assets through his separate family office.
Adam Carson, who is an operating partner at the venture capital, has been welcomed to the Messari board as part of the deal. Meanwhile, several other major players in the crypto space are now backing Messari, including the venture capital arm of leading crypto exchange Coinbase, London-based Blockchain.com’s Blockchain Ventures, Wyoming-based Kraken Ventures, New York-based Gemini Frontier Fund, and Antigua-based Alameda Capital.
Following the funding, the crypto analytics firm is planning to expand its capacity, particularly in the areas of engineering and research staff.
2/ We've never been more bullish on crypto or our unique position in the market. This round will help us:
— Ryan Selkis (@twobitidiot) August 5, 2021
+ reinvest in our core platform, add new data sets & analytics tools
+ grow our team from 30 to 75 by 2022
+ build a 1,000+ analyst Hub
And more. 🙃https://t.co/fDd0JOnAFu
Commenting on the development, Carson said in a statement that:
While investor participation in the crypto industry has grown exponentially over the past three years, current crypto research and analysis tools are still lacking the sophisticated signals and data that more advanced investors need […] Messari is filling that much-needed space.