Crypto bank Sygnum achieves unicorn status with new funding round that gives it a valuation of $1 billion

Sygnum, a crypto bank based in Switzerland, has raised $58 million, giving the privately-held company a valuation of $1 billion. The round was led by Bitcoin-focused investment firm Fulgur Ventures and follows a $40 million round closed early last year.

Digital asset banks operate much like traditional banks but instead of managing fiat-currencies like the U.S. dollar, they hold digital assets such Bitcoin on behalf of customers. Some traditional banks are beginning to add similar services in an effort to attract clients who are invested in crypto.

“We’re not a traditional bank coming from the fiat world. We are looking at the market from the digital asset space and then integrating it to traditional banking,” Sygnum cofounder and CEO Mathias Imbach told Fortune . “We've always said since the get-go, that we believe the future has heritage, and if you want to have broad adoption of this technology, we need to accept that.”

Sygnum, founded in 2017, focuses on institutional and accredited private investors, providing banking services including lending, brokerage, asset management, and tokenization.

Imbach said he believes this funding round attracted investors because of the traction the company has had over the last year. With the help of new crypto exchange-traded products, derivatives, and traditional securities, Sygnum says its revenue through the third quarter of 2024—mostly from client fees and interest—surpassed 2023's revenue for the entire year. The company did not disclose any additional details about its revenue.

The bank manages about $5 billion for over 1,700 clients in more than 60 countries, the bank said. The total number of trades with the bank increased over 1,000% last year, driven by its platform that lets other financial institutions offer crypto services to clients.

Imbach said the company puts a strong emphasis on maintaining regulatory compliance in all of the countries in which it operates, obtaining crypto licenses throughout Europe and Asia. However, it doesn’t have a license to operate in the United States.

Imbach said Sygnum pitches itself as a sort of safe haven, with “stringent compliance checks.” Following the 2022 collapse of crypto exchange FTX due to mismanagement of funds, Sygnum says it tries to gain customer trust through balance sheet transparency.

“If your crypto assets are with us, they’re fully segregated from our balance sheet,” Imbach said. “So whatever happens to the bank, even in an unlikely scenario of a bankruptcy, these assets could never be part of, for example, in the US, the equivalent of a Chapter 11 proceeding.”