Digibank Sygnum raises $88m in series B money

Sygnum, a Zurich-based digital bank with a Singapore asset management license, has raised S$120 million (US$88.2 million) in its series B financing round led by Sun Hung Kai & Co.

The new raise, joined by new and existing investors who were not named, bumps up Sygnum’s valuation to over S$1 billion (US$735.2 million). Several employees of the company also took part in the round.

Photo credit: Sygnum

Launched in 2017, Sygnum provides a fully regulated suite of financial products and services. These include bank-grade digital asset custody and fiat rails, spot and options trading, cryptocurrency-backed fiat loans, digital asset-focused asset management products, and more.

The company was founded by Mathias Imbach, who served as a management consultant at Bain & Company, and Gerald Goh, who headed alternative investments at CrimsoNox.

“Savvy digital asset investors are increasingly looking for novel opportunities in the frontiers of Web 3.0, including DeFi (decentralized finance), NFTs (non-fungible tokens), play-to-earn gaming, and the metaverse,” said Goh.

The latest funding round comes amid a rise in demand for convenient banking methods in the Asia-Pacific region, which is home to at least 50 digital banks. A majority of these operators are relatively new to the market, with over 70% of them being established between 2016 and 2020.

See also: Why Indonesia’s tech giants find digital banks irresistible

Sygnum will use the new capital to develop its institutional-grade Web 3.0 offerings, including additional yield-generating products like white-listed DeFi pools and expanded staking services, as well as its asset management solutions.

Sygnum will also build commercial partnerships with blockchain ecosystems like the Dfinity Foundation.

Currency converted from Singapore dollar to US dollar: US$1 = S$1.36.

Correction (January 6, 7:12 pm): This article was corrected to show that Sygnum’s valuation hit US$735.2 million, not US$1 billion.