Hong Kong-based crypto financial services firm Amber Group raised $100 million in a Series B round from investors, boosting its valuation to $1 billion.

The latest valuation is ten times that of the company’s Series A closed in 2019. Its Series B financing involved VC firms such as China Renaissance, Tiger Brokers, Tiger Global Management, Arena Holdings and DCM Ventures.

Founded in 2017, Amber Group services more than 500 institutional clients and has cumulatively traded over $330 billion across more than 100 electronic exchanges, with over $1 billion in assets under management, according to the company website.

“We’ve had record months over the past quarter across both client flow and on-exchange market-making volumes,” Amber Group CEO Michael Wu said in a statement. “Our cumulative trading volumes have doubled from $250 billion since the beginning of the year to over $500 billion,” he added.

Amber founders Michael Wu, Tiantian Kullander, Wayne Huo, Tony He and Luke Li worked together on Morgan Stanley’s fixed-income trading floor in Hong Kong, Bloomberg reported.

Amber trades coins like Bitcoin and Ether and serves both institutional and individual investors. It offers customers algorithmic trading, electronic market-making, high-frequency trading and OTC trading, among other products.

In 2019, Amber Group raised $28 million in Series A funding led by global crypto heavyweights Paradigm and Pantera Capital, with participation from Polychain Capital, Dragonfly Capital, Blockchain.com, Fenbushi Capital, and Coinbase Ventures.

The company has more than 330 employees worldwide across Hong Kong, Taipei, Seoul, and Vancouver. The proceeds from its Series B financing is expected to fund its global expansion.

Cryptocurrencies tumbled on Monday as China's crackdown on bitcoin mining expanded to the province of Sichuan.

Bitcoin fell to as low as $32,288 for the first time since June 8, and was last down 7.9 percent at around $32,781.

(Reporting by Seban Scaria; editing by Daniel Luiz) 

(seban.scaria@refinitiv.com)

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