Major Brazilian crypto asset manager secures $26M in funding

Coinbase and SoftBank have participated in a $26-million funding round for Latin America’s largest crypto asset management firm.

Hashdex, the Rio de Janeiro-based crypto asset manager with over 4 billion Brazilian real ($765 million) in assets under management, has raised $26 million in a new funding round from investors.

According to Bloomberg on Wednesday, venture capital firm Valor Capital Group led the funding round with participation from Coinbase Ventures — the VC arm of American exchange giant Coinbase — and SoftBank.

The $26-million capital influx comes as Hashdex is set to pursue its expansion outside Brazil. Indeed, the company is reportedly planning to open as many as 75 new locations across the world before the end of the year.

Hashdex also wants to increase its crypto offerings catalog with co-founder Marcelo Sampaio stating that investors are warming up to cryptocurrencies. “Investors are still getting to know crypto, and we see room to offer more products in Brazil,” the former Microsoft executive told Bloomberg in an interview.

As previously reported by Cointelegraph, Hashdex teamed up with Nasdaq to issue a crypto exchange-traded fund product in Bermuda back in September 2020. The Bermuda Stock Exchange approved the composite crypto ETF in February 2021.

Hashdex also teamed up with Nasdaq to create the Nasdaq Crypto Index for cryptocurrencies with the most liquidity on major exchanges and custodians such as Coinbase, Kraken, BitGo and Fidelity. The NCI consists of six cryptos, namely: Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH), Bitcoin Cash (BCH), Litecoin (LTC), Chainlink’s LINK and Stellar (XLM).

Hashdex is also a crypto ETF issuer in Brazil, with the company obtaining approval to list a composite cryptocurrency ETF product that tracks the NCI back in March.

Brazil and Canada remain the only two countries to approve a Bitcoin ETF, with several BTC ETF hopefuls submitting applications in the United States. Earlier in May, the Chicago Board Options Exchange filed a Form 19b-4 to become the exchange partner for Fidelity’s Wise Origin Bitcoin Trust Bitcoin ETF.