The company that runs the cryptocurrency exchange based in Hong Kong, HashKey Group, announced on Tuesday that it had “nearly” reached its fundraising goal of $100 million.
In August, HashKey made the announcement about the fundraising round, not long after receiving approval from Hong Kong’s security regulator to provide retail cryptocurrency trading. The company has a $1.2 billion post-raise valuation and is now considered a “unicorn” because it did not reveal the identity of the investors in the round. A unicorn is a word used to characterise privately held businesses valued at at least $1 billion.
In October, it was reported that, amidst an industry downturn intensified by FTX’s bankruptcy, early-stage and infrastructure projects were the focus of crypto fundraising in the third quarter of 2023, which reached a three-year low of $2.1 billion across 297 agreements, the smallest since Q4 2020.
However, many firms are shifting their stance and feeling optimistic about 2024 in light of the explosive increase that bitcoin and other significant digital assets saw in the fourth quarter of 2023 and the subsequent approval of the bitcoin ETF.