Jihan Wu's Crypto Lender Matrixport Looks to Raise $100M at $1.5B Valuation

Crypto lending firm Matrixport, led by Jihan Wu, is looking to raise $100 million at a $1.5 billion valuation.

The Singapore-based firm already has commitments for $50 million from lead investors at the sky-high valuation, but is still looking for investors for the other half of the round, Bloomberg reported on Friday citing anonymous sources. The lending firm seemed to confirm the news by tweeting out the article.

The crypto industry has been in major turmoil in the past few months as various cryptos have seen sharp declines compared to last year highs. Matrixport competitor in Asia Babel Finance has been restructuring to deal with a liquidity crunch.

The trouble only intensified with the bankruptcy of crypto exchange FTX. Matrixport's fixed income offering was affected by FTX's collapse.

Matrixport closed a $100 million Series C round in August 2021 that valued it at $1 billion, led by DST Global, C Ventures and K3 Ventures.

The firm sees $5 billion in monthly trading volume, counts $10 billion in assets under management and custody, as well as $700 million in outstanding loans, according to its website. Matrixport "serves individuals as well as over 500 institutions across Asia and Europe" and has licenses in Hong Kong and Switzerland, according to its LinkedIn.

Wu is the co-founder of Bitmain, the world's largest manufacturer of bitcoin mining rigs, and the chairman of Matrixport.

Read more: Matrixport's BTC Fixed Income Product Affected by FTX's Collapse