Jacquelyn Melinek

<div id="highlights-block_61def9ebe3a32" class="highlights">
 <ul>
 <li>Financial service companies are beginning to realize they can no longer ignore digital assets, Woodford said</li>
 <li>According to an SEC filing, Interactive Brokers CEO Milan Galik and Co-founder of thinkorswim and tastytrade Tom Sosnoff also participated in the round, but Woodford declined to comment on their participation</li>
 </ul>
 
</div>



Zero Hash raised $105 million in a Series D funding round, a few months after its last fundraise in October, the company shared on Wednesday.&nbsp;



The company provides businesses the ability to embed crypto and NFT products and services into their own platforms so that customers can trade, reward, earn and stake digital assets.&nbsp;



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote">“Every company will be a crypto company in some form,” Edward Woodford, co-founder and CEO of Zero Hash told Blockworks in an interview.</blockquote>



The company powers retail brokers, neo-banks and payment processors for companies like MoneyLion, Wirex, MoonPay and TradeZero. Additionally, Zero Hash gives back-end coverage and the regulatory licensing required to offer these services. “They’re coming to us for a number of different products, it really depends on what they offer customers,” he noted.



The company provides various types of licensing depending on the circumstances, Woodford noted. In the US, for example, Zero Hash has <a href="https://seedcx.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/360008819314-State-Money-Transmitter-Disclosures-" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">state-by-state licensing</a> as a regulated money transmitter.



“A lot of companies are thinking about the big picture here,” Woodford said. “Things like the metaverse, Web3 and crypto [are] an inherent part of that strategy and that’s why large customer-facing businesses are now having to think about digital assets more and more,” he added. 



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New investors in this round include Steven Cohen’s <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/point72-ventures-led-35m-raise-for-zero-hash-gelato-network-closes-11m-round/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Point72 Ventures</a>, Bain Capital Ventures, and NYCA. According to an SEC <a href="https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1657176/000165717622000001/xslFormDX01/primary_doc.xml" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">filing</a>, <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/interactive-brokers-launches-crypto-trading-through-paxos/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Interactive Brokers</a> CEO and President Milan Galik and Co-founder of thinkorswim and tastytrade Tom Sosnoff also participated in the round, but Woodford declined to comment on their participation. 



In total, the B2B digital-asset-as-a-service infrastructure firm has raised $165 million. There is no valuation being disclosed at this time.&nbsp;



“[This Series D] is really about expanding our team geographically,” Woodford said. “We’re working with companies with a global client base so we have to be more global in terms of our regulation presence. European licensing, APAC licensing, LATAM licensing are now all very much on our roadmap,” he added.&nbsp;



Financial service companies are beginning to realize they can no longer ignore digital assets, Woodford said. “They have existing clients and they want crypto to be part of their portfolio,” he said. “So rather than the client going elsewhere and potentially losing that client, ultimately I think more traditional financial services are looking for interesting ways to integrate crypto,” he added.&nbsp;



Alternatively, Woodford thinks crypto-focused companies like <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/bank-of-america-coinbase-revenue-diversification-to-accelerate-in-2022-and-beyond/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Coinbase</a> will build out more traditional financial services like banking and equity services. 



These two worlds will compete with one another to keep clientele, he said. 



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Zero Hash Raises $105M to Bring Crypto Products to All Financial Companies

<div id="highlights-block_6155d96b9f5d2" class="highlights">
 <ul>
 <li>Zero Hash will use the funds to continue its expansion of products offered within the DeFi and NFT space</li>
 <li>Gelato plans to expand into EVM-compatible layer-1s and Ethereum scaling solutions</li>
 </ul>
 
</div>



Zero Hash raised $35 million in a Series C led by Steven Cohen’s Point72 Ventures and Gelato Network closed an $11 million Series A round led by Dragonfly Capital, the companies announced separately on Thursday. 



Zero Hash is a digital assets infrastructure company that provides solutions for platforms to trade, receive, earn and reward digital assets. It powers neobanks including MoneyLion and Wirex and broker-dealers including tastyworks and TradeStation.&nbsp;



Additional investors in the round include NYCA Partners, DriveWealth, and others. Angel investors also participated in the round including Founder and CEO of Mercury, Immad Akhund, Founder and CEO of Deserve Kalpesh Kapadia, CEO and Founder of Digit, Ethan Bloch, and Founder and CEO of Marqeta, Jason Gardner, the company said.&nbsp;



Zero Hash powers 4% of all daily on-chain Ethereum transactions that flow through its infrastructure, according to a previous <a href="https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2021/05/14/2229978/0/en/Zero-Hash-Powers-4-of-all-Global-Ethereum-Blockchain-Transactions.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">announcement</a> by the company. 



The company said it will use the funds to continue its expansion of products offered within the <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/category/defi/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">DeFi</a> and NFT space. Zero Hash also will use the capital to expand its global licensing framework as well as strategic acquisitions, it said. 



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">Gelato Network raises $11 million in Series A funding round </h3>



An automating smart contract protocol Gelato Network has closed its Series A for more than $11 million, the company said. 



The capital raise was led by Dragonfly Capital while other investors included <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/private-equity-firm-kkr-invests-in-defi-and-blockchain-focused-parafi-capital/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">ParaFi Capital</a>, Nascent, IDEO CoLab Ventures, and Stani Kulechov from Aave. The funding will be used to continue building and integrating with DeFi protocols and aggregators like Aave and Zerion, and to offer automated transactions to their users, Gelato said. 



Gelato raised $1.2 million in seed funding in late 2020 led by IOSG Ventures, Galaxy Digital, Christopher Jentzsch, D1Ventures, Ming Ng, MetaCartel Ventures and The LAO, said Hilmar Orth, co-founder of Gelato, in an email to Blockworks. In total, the company has raised $12.2 million.



Gelato plans to expand into the market through targeting all the layer-1s compatible with the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) and emerging layer-2s, Orth explained, aiming to become a dominant automation protocol on each.&nbsp;



“Demand for automated transaction executions increased significantly in the past few months,” Orth said, noting in particular that users of decentralized exchanges on layer-2s and layer-1s with lower transaction costs are driving this demand.



In the future, Gelato plans to unveil new integrations and partnerships, in addition to upgraded functionality and use-cases with its products.



Gelato Network’s native token, $GEL, is trading at $2.08, up over 11% in the past 24 hours at time of publication, <a href="https://www.coingecko.com/en/coins/gelato#markets" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">according to CoinGecko</a>.



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