Dubai grants provisional approval to crypto firm Blockchain.com
London-based crypto firm Blockchain.com had won a provisional approval to operate in Dubai, becoming the latest in a series of digital asset companies expanding in the Gulf as the region looks to become a hub for blockchain technology, reports Reuters.
The company, which offers users a crypto wallet and is also a crypto exchange, said on Friday it had signed an agreement with Dubai’s crypto regulator Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority (VARA) and would open an office in the region and begin hiring.
The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has been pushing to develop virtual asset regulation to attract new forms of business as economic competition heats up in the Gulf region.
Dubai, one of the UAE’s seven emirates and the region’s business hub, in March adopted its first law governing virtual assets and established VARA as a regulator for the sector.
Since then, the emirate has also granted virtual asset licenses to crypto giants Binance and FTX.
Singapore’s Whampoa Group to invest $100 mln via fund for digital assets
Singapore’s Whampoa Group, a multi-family office with investments in global tech firms, aims to deploy about $100 million through a venture capital fund in start-ups in the burgeoning digital assets segment, reports Reuters.
Whampoa Digital, the group’s digital assets investment arm, will invest in and incubate early stage startups in Web3 – a utopian vision of the internet where users, rather than shareholders, own websites and other online services.
The fund plans to initially deploy $100 million and then scale up. It will invest in equity and tokens of products or services that enable and facilitate the mass adoption of Web3.
Cryptocurrencies are the most widely known digital assets that also include stablecoins, non-fungible tokens and others.
RegTech firm SteelEye raises $21 mln in latest funding round
Regulation technology firm SteelEye has raised $21 million to help fund its global expansion, in what it said was the largest fundraising for a European company in the sector this year, reports Reuters.
The Series B round was led by Ten Coves Capital alongside existing investors Fidelity International Strategic Ventures, Illuminate Financial, Beacon Equity Partners, and a large family office, it said.
The valuation of the compliance technology and data analytics firm, which has now raised $43 million and counts Schroders and Fidelity International among its clients, was not disclosed.
Headquartered in London, SteelEye’s technology helps banks, asset managers and other financial firms more easily comply with European Union, British and U.S. regulations.
ADT secures more than $1.5 bln investment from State Farm, Google
Home-security firm ADT has secured an investment of $1.2 billion from State Farm as part of a partnership that it hopes will encourage the insurer’s many customers to buy its smoke detection and anti-intrusion products, reports Reuters.
ADT Shares surged 10% in early trading as the company will also receive another $150 million for product development from existing investor Google, the Alphabet Inc-owned search giant that took a 6% stake in ADT in 2020.
State Farm, which has 13.7 million customers with homeowner insurance, will also spend up to $300 million to aid product development, customer growth and marketing.
ADT had 6.6 million recurring revenue customers as of the end of last year.
The company said it was planning to avoid dilution from the State Farm investment by using the proceeds to buy back up to 133.3 million shares of its stock at $9 apiece.