Gulf cryptocurrency company Rain Financial has raised $110 million in a funding round participated by global investors.

The latest round, which comes just about a year after the Bahrain-based crypto exchange raised $6 million, is co-led by Silicon Valley firm Kleiner Perkins and investment company Paradigm. Other backers include Coinbase Ventures, Global Founders Capital, MEVP, Cadenza Ventures, JIMCO and CMT Digital.

In a statement, the company said it will use the fresh capital to further expand licensing in other countries and regions, as well as enhance its technology.

Rain was founded in 2017 by Abdullah Almoaiqel, AJ Nelson, Joseph Dallago and Yehia Badawy to offer a platform to buy, sell and store cryptocurrencies.

It now has 400 employees on its payroll and has done more than $1.9 billion worth of transactions and enlisted more than 185,000 active users.

The cryptocurrency sector is beginning to gain traction in the Gulf region, although no digital currencies are recognized yet as an official tender and the digital assets regime is only being developed.

Last October, the Dubai Financial Services Authority (DFSA), which oversees financial services in the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC), launched its regulatory framework for companies dealing with “investment tokens”.

The authority also said it is still formulating proposals for “exchange tokens”, also commonly known as cryptocurrencies.

(Reporting by Cleofe Maceda; editing by Seban Scaria)

Cleofe.maceda@lseg.com

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