US-based cryptocurrency protection technology producer Anchorage collected $40m in series B capital yesterday from investors including payment processing firm Visa.
Blockchain Capital led the round, which also included Andreessen Horowitz. The latter led a $17m series A round for Anchorage six months ago, with the participation of Khosla Ventures and assorted angel investors.
Founded in 2017, Anchorage’s approach to safeguarding cryptocurrency wallets requires withdrawals to be approved by other employees.
Specifically, a company whitelists the devices of select employees on its network and whenever a transaction is attempted, a minimum of two-thirds of these staff need to approve it.
Transactions are validated through human and artificial intelligence-based checks, ensuring a hacker cannot pose as an employee. Anchorage expects its system to be more secure than usernames and passwords, which can be stolen.
Anchorage, Visa and Andressen Horowitz are three of the 28 founding members of the Libra Association, which will govern the Facebook-created cryptocurrency Libra.
Diogo Mónica, co-founder and president of Anchorage, said: “As a custodian, our work is focused on building financial plumbing that other companies depend on for their operations to run smoothly. In this regard we have always looked at Visa as a model.
“Visa was fintech before the term existed, and has always been on the vanguard of financial infrastructure. Visa’s investment in Anchorage is helpful not only to our company but to our industry, as a validation of the entire ecosystem and a recognition that crypto will play a key role in the future of global finance.”
