Crypto custodian Cobo raises $40 million to expand DeFi-as-a-service

Asia-headquartered crypto custodian and asset management firm Cobo has closed a $40 million Series B founding round.

The firm said in an announcement on Thursday that the round was led by DST Global, A&T Capital and IMO Ventures. The latest funding comes nearly three years after Cobo net $13 million a Series A in October 2018 backed by DHVC.

With the proceeds, Cobo plans to advance its services on top of the custody solution including a new offering that will allow institutional custody clients to access and earn yields on decentralized finance protocols via "user-friendly interfaces." 

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Further, Cobo said part of the funding will be used to apply for regulatory licenses as the firm has gradually transitioned its headquarters from Beijing to Singapore over the past years.

Cobo was founded by Jiang Changhao and Mao Shixing, who is the co-founder of F2Pool. Also known as Discus Fish, Mao is a long-time influencer in the Chinese crypto community given his early entrants into Bitcoin and Ethereum mining. Him being an active participant in the DeFi and NFT space since last year has also boosted Cobo's experience in its DeFi-as-a-service offering.

"In the past, we’d witnessed crypto applications evolve from Bitcoin to DeFi and now NFTs. In due time, I even foresee metaverses will be next to be developed on the blockchain. So, looking ahead, we have the foundational infrastructure in place that will enable us to serve 1,000 institutional investors," Mao said in the statement.

Building on the success of F2Pool, Cobo started by offering miner customers staking and financial products through its custody and hardware wallet service that was called Cobo Vault. But it has divested the hardware wallet unit earlier this year to focus on service on top of the custody business.

About Author

Wolfie joined The Block’s news team in 2020 and switched to the research side in 2021 to focus on crypto mining analysis. Prior to The Block, he had been a journalist at CoinDesk for three years. Wolfie has a background in financial journalism.