How a Singapore crypto startup became a unicorn in just 2 years

Imagine that you can earn up to 30% annualized interest rates with a savings account. What about an investment tool that guarantees you a double-digit annualized yield regardless of market conditions? Let’s throw in access to zero-cost loans as well.

These services may sound fantastical, but they are all very much grounded in reality. At least, this is what Singapore-based startup Matrixport promises consumers.

Photo credit: Matrixport

In its latest series C round of funding, Matrixport raised US$100 million, propelling the firm’s valuation to over US$1 billion and making it Singapore’s latest unicorn.

This financing round was led by C Ventures, K3 Ventures, and DST Global. The fundraise also saw participation from other notable investors like Polychain, A&T Capital, CMT Digital, Lightspeed, and Foresight Ventures.

What is Matrixport?

Matrixport is a one-stop crypto financial services platform that aims to make digital currencies accessible to everyone. Think of it as a banking tool that individuals and institutions can tap to invest, save, trade, or take loans in cryptocurrencies.

Matrixport was established by John Ge, who serves as the startup’s CEO, and Jihan Wu in 2019. The co-founders made their names in the crypto scene with Bitmain, a company that was once China’s biggest producer of cryptocurrency mining machines and was valued north of US$40 billion.

Jihan Wu, co-founder of Matrixport / Photo credit: Coindesk

The company currently has over 220 employees and serves both institutional and retail customers across Asia and Europe.

According to the firm, it has over US$10 billion (and growing) worth of assets under management (AUM). To put this into perspective, the Union Bank of India, which is ranked as the 199th biggest bank in the world, has US$7.7 billion in AUM.

High-net-worth crypto individuals account for more than half of Matrixport’s AUM, while institutional clients such as family offices, hedge funds, and traditional financial institutions contribute 20% to 30%, according to Ge. Retail investors comprise only around 10% of Matrixport’s AUM.

“We definitely do want to cater more to traditional finance customers, but that will require more licences,” Ge adds.

There are hundreds – if not thousands – of other platforms out there, trying to do the same thing as Matrixport. Yet most of them will find it hard to attain unicorn status.

Novel products

Zero-cost loans

Dual currency

Smart pool

Prioritizing stable returns