In the midst of the crypto bear market, businesses worldwide are cutting spending to brace themselves for an impending recession, while plenty of business operations and deals have been tabled until further notice as companies plan for the next year. According to a report by Mckinsey, companies should not expect for quick demand recovery in the short term, and this indicates a possible slowdown on deal flows as well. This is pertinent especially for companies within the fairly new crypto industry.
In spite of the bleak outlook, crypto derivatives trading platform Bakkt which is owned by Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), has announced a successful round of Series B fundraising totalling to $300 million. This fundraising round saw the participation of Microsoft’s U12, Goldfinch Partners, Pantera Capital, Boston Consulting Group, CMT Digital, PayU, and of course, ICE.
The post also highlighted the upcoming Bakkt mobile app launch, slated for a summer release this year. In a bid to make crypto assets more accessible for the general public, Bakkt’s app will allow consumers to integrate Bitcoin assets, accrued airline miles or even retail loyalty rewards into its digital wallet.
Source: “Bakkt Completes $300 Million Series B Financing” article on Medium
“I’m excited at our potential to unlock nearly $1 trillion of digital assets when the Bakkt app launches this summer. With the completion of our Series B financing and recent acquisition of Bridge2 Solutions, Bakkt is now a team of 350 employees and powers the loyalty redemption programs for 7 of the top 10 financial institutions and over 4,500 loyalty and incentive programs including two of the largest US airlines,” Bakkt CEO Mike Blandina said in the article.
According to CoinTelegraph, this additional fundraising round leaves Bakkt with a total of $482 million in funds, adding to the $182.5 million Bakkt raised in December 2018.
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