Unconfirmed: Goldman Sachs-Backed Crypto Payments Startup Circle Seeks $250M in Funding

Goldman Sachs-backed cryptocurrency finance firm Circle is reportedly looking to raise $250 million of funding in a combination of equity and debt. The source of information are claims made by an anonymous person familiar with the company’s plans, as cited in a report by technology news website The Information on March 2.

According to the article, Circle — which generates revenue from trading fees on its cryptocurrency exchanges (Poloniex and the institutional offering Circle Trade) — has seen a decrease in its proceeds after the overall crypto market crash lead to decreased trading volumes. Still, in an interview with The Information, Circle’s co-founder Jeremy Allaire claimed that the company’s revenue grew between 2017 and 2018 despite the fall in crypto prices.

As Cointelegraph reported in January, the over-the-counter (OTC) crypto trading desk at Circle (Circle Trade) had a notional volume of $24 billion in 2018.

Circle is also the company behind the dollar-backed stablecoin USD Coin (USDC), for which the company released the third audit report in January. The coin was added by Binance to its combined stablecoin market in December last year.

More recently, as part of an overall aim to operate with a broader part of the institutional crypto trading market, Gemini — the cryptocurrency exchange founded by the Winklevoss twins — has joined the British Telecommunications Radianz Cloud broker community.