The Japanese crypto exchange DeCurret has received a major boost with leading banks, conglomerates such as Mitsubishi and others participating in USD 62 million funding round for the fast-growing platform.
The Tokyo-based company will use the money to create a new “digital currency” platform and a smartphone, reported Nikkei and TechCrunch Japan.
The package will also see Toshihide Endo, the former head of the country’s top financial and crypto regulator, the Financial Services Agency (FSA), join the company as a special advisor from April. Endo served as the FSA commissioner from 2018 to 2020, during which time the FSA completely revamped its crypto policies in the wake of the devastating Coincheck hack of early 2018.
Endo also serves as an advisor to Sony and Fukoku Mutual Life Insurance.
The funding involved a third-party share allotment deal that was underwritten by its biggest shareholder, the internet service provider Internet Initiative Japan, which provided 30% of the funding.
Joining was a veritable who’s-who of high-level Japanese businesses, including the telecoms giants KDDI and the Nippon Telegraph and Telephone (NTT), as well as the banks Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation, Mitsubishi UFJ Bank and the Japan Post Bank. The security firms Sohgo Security Services (ALSOK) and Secom also took part, as did the monolithic Mitsubishi Corporation. Another investor was SBI Holdings, the SBI Group’s holding company, and the operator of two rival crypto exchanges.
DeCurret did not reveal how much each company had invested, not how many shares had been allotted in each case.
The company did not go into details about its smartphone plans, but explained that it would seek to construct a “two-layer structure digital currency platform” that enables makes use of blockchain technology to create “privately issued digital currencies” and “implement “company-specific smart contracts.”
DeCurret last year formed a new “study group” including many of its new investors, with the group hopeful of creating a platform that the entire Japanese business community will be able to use for digital payments.
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