Kraken Files for IPO After Raising $800 Million in Strategic Investment

Kraken announced yesterday, November 19, that the crypto exchange has filed an Initial registration for IPO with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission ( SEC). Besides, the crypto firm announced that it secured $800 million strategic investment on November 18. The funding has raised the company’s valuation to $20 billion. The U.S.-based crypto exchange, founded back in 2011, also reached an agreement for a $200 million strategic investment from the leading market maker Citadel Securities. 

Kraken Files for U.S IPO

The exchange submitted a draft registration statement on Form S-1 with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission ( SEC) as part of its move towards IPO filing. Even though Kraken disclosed the IPO filing, the number of shares and the price range are yet to be announced. The SEC review of the Form S-1 may take several weeks or a few months. The move is welcomed by the crypto community. Tweeting on the development, Ted Pillows noted that it was interesting to see those listings and how they would perform.

The exchange also clarified that the announcement of a confidential IPO filing with the SEC is made under Rule 135 of the Securities Act and does not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy any securities. The Kraken is one of the oldest crypto exchanges in the world with a significant global presence. The company offers over 450 digital assets, traditional assets such as U.S. futures and U.S.-listed stocks and ETFs, and fiat currencies.

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Kraken Secures $800 Million Strategic Investment

According to the official company announcement, the primary tranche was led by institutional investors, including Jane Street, DRW Venture Capital, HSG, Oppenheimer Alternative Investment Management, Tribe Capital, and from Kraken Co-CEO Arjun Sethi’s family office. 

Commenting on the funding, Co-CEO Kraken, Arjun Sethi, said that the investment represented long-term conviction in Kraken’s mission to build a trusted, regulated infrastructure for the open financial system. He further stated that their focus had always been straightforward: to create a platform where anyone could trade any asset, anytime, anywhere. He noted that the caliber of their new investors reflected both the scale of the opportunity ahead and the depth of alignment around how that infrastructure should be built.

The firm also reached an agreement for a $200 million strategic investment from Citadel Securities. Commenting on the development, Jim Esposito, the President of Citadel Securities, said that they were excited to support Kraken’s continued growth as it helped shape the next chapter of digital innovation in markets.

The IPO  move by Kraken and strategic funding from leading financial players show that the crypto market is maturing and becoming an integral part of the mainstream financial system. Besides, amid a pro-crypto policy followed by the Trump administration, the broader crypto community is expecting more crypto firms to go public in the near future.

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