Deal of the Week: Principal/family offices back digital asset investment group

A New Jersey-based digital asset investment/lending group, which provides non-bank dollar loans as crypto-assets as security and interest-earning crypto accounts, has received further backing from high profile principal investment offices. 

BlockFi was backed by 13 investors committing $50 million in a Series C round. Investors included Winklevoss Capital, the investment group owned by the Winklevoss brothers, Cameron and Tyler. Also backing the round was Valar Ventures, a New York City-based investment group owned by tech investor Peter Thiel. 

The round was also backed by Avon Ventures, which is linked to FMR, the parent company of Fidelity Investments, owned by the Johnson family.  Avon, Valar, and Winklevoss Capital also backed BlockFi in a Series B round in February, and Winklevoss Capital and Valar were backers of the crypto-asset group in a Series A round back in August last year. 

Altogether BlockFi has received nearly $160 million in backing since it was founded in August 2017. 

Winklevoss Capital is probably one of a few principal investment offices that have consistently committed capital to crypto-assets and crypto-infrastructure since the sector arose as an investment opportunity eight years ago. The New York City-based investment group was a big backer of Filecoin, the Bitcoin data storage group, which had an Initial Coin Offering in 2017.