Bakkt Raises Additional $300 Million Despite Current State of Crypto Market

On Monday (March 16), Bakkt, the crypto custodian and Bitcoin derivatives exchange subsidiary of Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), announced that it had raised an additional $300 million of capital — via series B financing — from such prominent investors as venture capital firm M12 (formerly Microsoft Ventures), management consulting firm Boston Consulting Group, and crypto-focused investment firm Pantera Capital.

In the blog post published earlier today, Bakkt CEO Mike Blandina said that other investors participating in this series B round included Intercontinental Exchange, PayU, Goldfinch Partners, and CMT Digital.

He also talked about that Bakkt’s view of digital assets includes “things as diverse as loyalty and rewards points, in-game assets, merchant stored value, and cryptocurrencies,” and that these digital assets “represent nearly $1 trillion in consumer spending power.”   

What Bakkt intends to do is to make it easier for users to have control over their digital assets:

“Whether it’s miles from your favorite airline, loyalty points from the local grocery store, or bitcoin you’ve purchased, the Bakkt app enables you to aggregate all of these assets into a single digital wallet. In just a few taps you can use those assets to shop at your favorite merchants, send them to family and friends, or convert them to cash…

“Bakkt is now a team of 350 employees and powers the loyalty redemption programs for 7 of the top 10 financial institutions and over 4,500 loyalty and incentive programs including two of the largest US airlines.”

This will be done via the Bakkt mobile app, which is being released this summer. 

Featured Image Courtesy of Bakkt