Avanti Finalizes $37M Series A Round; Preps Digital Bank Launch
The company is using the proceeds of the funds for the regulatory capital required to launch its digital asset bank, engineering costs and other operating expenses.
![article-image](/_next/image?url=https%3A%2F%2Fblockworks-co.imgix.net%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2021%2F03%2FCaitlinLong_Avanti_Twitter.jpeg&w=1920&q=75)
Caitlin Long, CEO, Avanti; Source: Twitter
key takeaways
- Proceeds from the round will pay for required regulatory capital, engineering and operating costs.
- Series A shareholders include institutional investors, cryptocurrency companies and family offices, as well as multiple Avanti executives and directors.
Avanti is moving closer to its goal of launching a digital bank as it finalized a $37 million Series A financing round today.
The company is using the proceeds of the funds for the regulatory capital required to launch its digital asset bank, engineering costs and other operating expenses. Due to market demand, Avanti upsized the offering, according to a company press release today. To date, the company has raised $44 million in total.
Series A shareholders include the who’s who of institutional investors, cryptocurrency companies and family offices, as well as multiple Avanti executives and directors: Trace Mayer, Marcel Kasumovich, Rob Kauffman of Aldel Capital, Tim Keefe, Lawrence Lepard, Eric Ly and others. Institutional investors include 1843 Capital, AP Capital, Banca del Ceresio, Binance.US, Coinbase Ventures, ECMC Group, Equity Management Associates, Greybull Stewardship, Hard Yaka, HashKey, Holon Global Investments, Lemniscap, Madison Paige Ventures, Morgan Creek Digital, PJT Partners, Slow Ventures, Susquehanna Private Equity Investments and The University of Wyoming Foundation, among others.
Caitlin Long, Avanti’s founder and CEO, who worked on Wall Street for more than 20 years, said in the company release, “Our roadmap includes offering API-based U.S. dollar payment services for wires, ACH and SWIFT; issuance of our tokenized, programmable U.S. dollar called Avit; and custody and on-/off-ramp services for bitcoin and other digital assets.”
Avanti is one of only two companies to receive its regulatory bank license from the state of Wyoming. Avanti received its license in November 2020. The cryptocurrency exchange Kraken was the first crypto company to become a regulated bank under the same charter in September 2020.