AAA Nydig eyes insurance market with $100m injection

Nydig eyes insurance market with $100m injection

US-based Bitcoin custodian services provider Nydig has pulled in $100m in growth financing from insurance firms Starr Insurance and Liberty Mutual Insurance as well as unspecified property and casualty-focused insurance providers.

The additional capital follows a $200m round last month that was co-led by insurance firms MassMutual and New York Life with Nydig’s parent company, asset manager Stone Ridge Holdings, investment bank Morgan Stanley, Soros Fund Management and FS Investments.

Venture capital firms Bessemer Venture Partners (BVP) and FinTech Collective also participated in the March round.

Nydig operates a regulated, audited and insured custodian platform focused on the Bitcoin cryptocurrency and aimed at institutional investors. It also provides asset management services as well as US dollar loans that can be borrowed against Bitcoin.

Ross Stevens, CEO of Stone Ridge and chairman of Nydig, said the company will be developing new Bitcoin-denominated products for the insured. It raised $5m from MassMutual in December 2020, after the insurance provider had purchased $100m worth of Bitcoin through the company’s platform.

Unnamed financial services firms, insurance providers, investment banks and asset managers had supplied $50m for Nydig two months earlier.

BVP and FinTech Collective had respectively led two earlier rounds of undisclosed size for the company, while Starr Insurance was a founding investor, according to Starr chairman and CEO, Hank Greenberg.