Swiss digital assets bank SEBA has raised substantial capital from a Series C funding round to further expand its global presence.
Digital assets platform SEBA bank recently raised about $119 million in a Series C funding round led by crypto-centric firms. SEBA reportedly plans to use the fresh funds to increase its international visibility, in addition to providing services around non-fungible tokens (NFTs). The Swiss bank’s chief executive officer Guido Buehler said:
“We plan to expand into a number of new priority markets globally with this funding, including the Middle East. This funding will also be used to grow our headcount across these new priority markets. In addition, funding will be used to drive institutional business growth through further investment in our product offering and technology.”
Participants in the round include crypto trading platform and liquidity provider Alameda Research, and DeFi Technologies, alternative investment platform Altive. Furthermore, rounding out the co-investment leaders’ group are mainstream investment firms Ordway Selections and Summer Capital. In addition, SEBA’s long-standing benefactor, Swiss private bank, Julius Baer, was also a participant in the round.
Buehler founded SEBA in 2017, with Andreas Amschwand, after serving as the head of asset servicing at UBS Wealth Management. Amschwand, the former global head of foreign exchange at UBS, stepped down as SEBA chairman in 2020.
SEBA Funding Reflects Commitment to Growth in Parts of Asia
SEBA is currently present in over 25 markets globally and looks to expand in the UAE, Hong Kong, and Singapore. For its Middle Eastern expansion plans, the Swiss bank established a specialized office in Abu Dhabi. In addition, SEBA also appointed an APAC CEO to grow its profile in East Asia. Also, the fully-regulated digital bank stated that it plans to double its current team size of 100+. According to SEBA, this should be possible within the next year.
Company CEO Buehler revealed in a media session that research and development are at the core of SEBA’s business. To buttress this assertion, he gave examples, citing the Swiss bank’s launch of the SEBA Earn initiative back in October. The program allows clients to earn a yield on their crypto holdings. SEBA Earn also lets institutions generate income from proof-of-stake protocols, including Polkadot, Tezos, and Cardano.
Another example Buehler gave that underscores SEBA’s relentlessness for innovative financial services technology, is the Gold Token initiative. The token is a stablecoin for digital ownership of gold. Furthermore, according to the Swiss platform, it is also backed by physical gold and is redeemable at any time.
Cheney Cheng, the managing partner at Altive, one of SEBA’s principal investors, also weighed in on the Swiss bank’s role as a digital assets’ custodian. In Cheng’s words, “Given the global regulatory trend of digital assets, we envision that regulated crypto financial institutions like Swiss-licensed SEBA Bank would become the cornerstone of future finance.”
Previously, SEBA raised a total of $126.5 million, according to data from Crunchbase. However, there is still little information on the bank’s valuation, as Buehler declined to reveal it. Nonetheless, the latest Series C fundraise brings SEBA’s total funding to approximately $295 million.
Tolu is a cryptocurrency and blockchain enthusiast based in Lagos. He likes to demystify crypto stories to the bare basics so that anyone anywhere can understand without too much background knowledge.
When he’s not neck-deep in crypto stories, Tolu enjoys music, loves to sing and is an avid movie lover.
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