From American Express to BBVA to Goldman Sachs, major firms across the financial services landscape are making their first investments into bitcoin and blockchain startups.
The herd of new strategic investors is playing an increasingly important role in the health of the financing market for startups in the space. While deal activity dropped for the second consecutive quarter in Q3’15 to $87M, all five of the largest financing deals to blockchain and bitcoin startups in 2015 year-to-date included a corporate strategic investor. As TransAmerica Ventures CEO Georg Schwegler said recently,
“The encouraging part is that a lot of finance companies — banks and insurance — are becoming aware of the advantages of the technology finally.”
To illustrate, we analyzed CB Insights data to plot first investments by financial services firms in the space over time. As the chart illustrates, there’s been a plethora of first-time activity from corporates since August 2015. Another initiative not included on the chart below is R3 CEV, which counts 22 banks including Credit Suisse, JPMorgan and Deutsche Bank collaborating to advance ledger solutions and standards that meet banking requirements.
Among the new financial services investors are insurance providers such as TransAmerica, New York Life, and Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance Group (MSIG); payments giants including Visa, MasterCard, and American Express; as well as banks Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group (MUFG), Citi, Santander, and Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (CIBC).
Interestingly, a relatively small number of startups have captured the large majority of financial services investments in the bitcoin and blockchain space. For example, four firms – Coinbase, Chain, Digital Currency Group, and Ripple – count 14 first investments by financial services firms in the space. The table below highlights a few of the startups that have garnered the most first-time strategic financial services investors.
| Notable Bitcoin and Blockchain Startups With Multiple Financial Services Investors | ||
| Company | Description | Financial Services First Investment |
| BitFlyer | Bitcoin exchange | Mitsubishi UFJ Capital, Mitsui Sumitiomo Insurance VC |
| Coinbase | Bitcoin wallet and exchange company | BBVA Ventures, NYSE, USAA, ReInventure (WestPac) |
| Chain | Enterprise blockchain platform | Visa, Fiserv, Capital One, Citi Ventures, Nasdaq |
| Digital Currency Group | Digital currency asset management firm, OTC trading and startup investor | MasterCard, New York Life Investments, TransAmerica Ventures, CIBC |
| Ripple | Cryptocurrency-based payments system | CME Ventures, Santander InnoVentures |
Looking for more Fin Tech data? Sign up free for the CB Insights Venture Capital Database.