Hong Kong-based cryptocurrency exchange and digital assets financial services company HashKey Group said today that it has raised nearly $100 million in an early-stage funding round at a pre-money valuation of more than $1.2 billion.

The company said in its announcement that existing and new investors joined in the Series A round, but did not reveal their identities, only stating that they were “prominent institutional investors” and “leading Web3 institutions.” A Bloomberg report revealed that OKX Ventures, the investment arm of the OKX cryptocurrency exchange, was among the lead investors, according to sources familiar with the deal. However, OKX and HashKey declined to comment.

HashKey is the provider of end-to-end digital asset financial services to customers in Asia and investment solutions for institutions and professional investors. As a company, it operates one of the two cryptocurrency exchanges in Hong Kong. It provides products including digital asset custody solutions and hosted blockchain infrastructure.

In May 2023, Bloomberg reported that the company was seeking funding between $100 million and $200 million to take advantage of Hong Kong’s emerging role as a crypto hub aiming for a valuation of about $1 billion. The country, in contrast to China, which currently bans cryptocurrency operations, has been opening up regulations in order to attract new crypto businesses to the city.

As of August 2023, HashKey announced that it became the first crypto exchange to receive a license from the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission allowing it to expand its business from professionals to retail users.

HashKey said that within four months of launch, the exchange surpassed more than 155,000 users and the daily trading volume exceeded an average trading volume of $630 million in the past 30 days. The company added that HashKey Exchange has also established strategic partnerships with over ten brokerage firms and six public companies.

The company said it will use the fresh funding to accelerate the development of its business ventures, which include digital asset management; HashKey Cloud, a blockchain node validation service provider as well as a blockchain tokenization service that issues digital representations of assets, and a Web3 incubation arm and community builder.

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