The Japan-headquartered company’s now among the two tech unicorns with operation in Japan

Global cryptocurrency platform Liquid.com today announced its first close of an ongoing Series C funding that puts the company valuation at over US$1 billion.

This round is led by IDG Capital, with participation from the cryptocurrency mining rigs maker Bitmain Technologies. The investment is the latest foray into regulated digital asset trading by Bitmain Technologies after investing in ErisX.

The company said that it will use the funding for global expansion, product development of the core trading exchange business, and expansion into the security token market.

“Consumers are increasingly placing a higher value on digital assets and technologies they can trust and use with greater ease. Our vision is to make financial services accessible to all, which means bringing more people into the digital asset space so that anyone can be a part of it,” said Liquid CEO Mike Kayamori.

Liquid was founded in 2014. In 2017, Liquid raised more than US$100 million in a pre-discounted ICO raise, which was the first regulated ICO to be done in Japan.

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General Partner of IDG Capital Young Guo noted that the firm realised that Tokyo has emerged as a top destination for crypto innovation with proper regulations which factored into the investment.

IDG’s current portfolio of crypto investments include Coinbase, Ripple, Bitmain, and Kakao’s crypto unit.
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