Visa, one of the largest payment processors in the world has recently made its second investment in cryptocurrency startup called Anchorage. As reported by Fortune, the company has reportedly invested millions of dollars during Anchorage’s new funding round.
Both Visa and Anchorage have partnered with Facebook for its cryptocurrency project Libra. This is the second time that Visa has shown interest in a cryptocurrency startup and poured millions into it. Visa first invested in a blockchain startup called ‘Chain,’ an enterprise blockchain firm which was later acquired by Lightyear, a Steller-based startup.
Anchorage, a startup that secures digital assets holdings for institutional investors, has recently started a new funding round worth $40 million, as Visa and Blockchain Capital have been the leading investors. The amount of investment and the total valuation of the startup are still not fully revealed. Anchorage first came into the limelight when its logo first appeared alongside payment system giants such as PayPal, Visa, and Mastercard on a presentation slide introducing Facebook’s own cryptocurrency Libra.
Visa’s spokesperson, Terry Angelos, who leads Visa’s efforts in financial tech said in a statement that the firm is interested in supporting “companies like Anchorage who are working to provide secure infrastructure to the growing ecosystem of digital assets.” He also added that “Anchorage is building the foundation to support an array of new financial services.”
Crypto Collaboration with Facebook Libra from the Very Beginning
Diogo Monica, the co-founder and president of Anchorage’s, told Fortune Magazine that the firm is working with Facebook since the day when there were only two people working on Facebook’s Libra project. Anchorage has been developing and consolidating the technical underpinning of the Libra project since David Marcus, a Facebook executive who leads the company’s crypto arm, and Morgan Beller, a Libra co-creator who heads strategy at Calibra, were basically the two people working on Libra.
The product portfolio of Anchorage includes an ideal alternative to ‘Cold Storage’ or offline storage on which cryptocurrency investors can rely and store their holdings safe and sound. The product, known as ‘Cold Storage Custody,’ offers investors to store their private keys in offline places where it is almost impossible to reach without prior information and credentials. Apart from that, Anchorage also uses biometric verification of users, multi-level authentication such as 2FA and human reviews to secure the investors’ cryptocurrency funds.
The managing partner of Blockchain Capital Bart Stephens, who is also the second leading investor in Anchorage and a customer himself of the firm, said he has been amazed by a startup’s technology. “I found it to be the most compelling product demo I’ve seen in seven years, having reviewed 4,500 companies,” he told Fortune.
