Animoca Brands co-leads $88m round of HK digital asset custodian

Hong Kong-based Hex Trust, which provides custody services for digital assets, has raised US$88 million in a series B funding round co-led by Animoca Brands and Liberty City Ventures.

Photo credit: Hex Trust

According to a Bloomberg report, the round pushes Hex Trust’s valuation to US$300 million, increasing the figure by 10x within a year. Investors including Ripple, Terra, Morgan Creek, Primavera Venture Partners, and entrepreneur Adrian Cheng also participated in the round.

Established in 2018, Hex Trust’s main offering is its proprietary bank-grade platform Hex Safe. The service provides financial institutions, digital asset companies, and corporations with secure and seamless access to solutions such as decentralized finance and prime brokerage.

Over the last year, the company has onboarded several high-profile clients such as Algorand Foundation, Terraform Labs, Tezos Foundation, Celo Foundation, Flare Networks, Animoca Brands, Huobi Asset Management, and Union Bank of the Philippines.

Hex Trust said that it has US$5 billion in assets under custody. It currently has over 100 employees across offices in Hong Kong, Singapore, and Vietnam.

The firm plans to use the new capital to expand to Europe and the Middle East, obtain additional licenses, further develop the Hex Safe platform, and improve its new services such as financing and structured solutions.

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“As large institutions continue adopting digital assets at an increased pace, they need fully licensed custody services to meet compliance and regulatory standards,” Alessio Quaglini, co-founder and CEO of Hex Trust, said in a statement.

Other investors in this round include:

• LeadBlock Partners
• Eterna Capital
• Sino Global Capital
• Topaz
• BlockFi
• CoinList
• Protocol Labs
• Pulsar Trading
• Wintermute
• QBN Capital
• Kenetic Capital
• HashKey Capital
• Fenbushi Capital
• Radiant Ventures
• Cell Rising