CoinDesk owner wins SoftBank and Alphabet as investors

Digital Currency Group on Monday said its existing shareholders sold roughly $700 million of stock in a private sale. The secondary share sale valued the owner of asset manager Grayscale and cryptocurrency news outlet CoinDesk at $10 billion.

DCG expected to generate over $1.0 billion in revenue

DCG’s stockholders sold shares to a consortium of investors led by SoftBank’s Vision Fund II and Latin America Fund. Other notable investors that participated in the share sale included the private equity arm of Alphabet Inc, Ribbit Capital, GIC Capital, and Emory University.

The $10 billion valuation is particularly impressive for DCG since it has raised only $25 million in primary capital since its inception in 2015. The New York-based firm is estimated to generate more than $1.0 billion in revenue this year.

DCG also has sizable holdings in several cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin that hit a record $66,000 last month.

CEO Silbert is not in a rush to take DCG public

Commenting on the news on Monday, Digital Currency Group CEO Barry Silbert said:

We’re the best proxy for investing in this industry. We were looking for the type of backers that could be, and hopefully will be, with us on this journey for the next couple of decades.

DCG is now one of the most valuable privately held crypto companies in the world, alongside Circle, Kraken, and Ripple. According to CEO Silbert, DCG might go public at some point, but the prospect of an IPO wasn’t even under discussion at the moment. He added:

The typical reason companies go public or rush to go public is to address liquidity or to raise money for acquisitions. But we don’t have those pressures.