Copper raises $8m for Asia, Americas push

Copper.co, a London-based custodian for digital assets, has raised $8 million in Series A funding to expand to Asia and North America.

Among the round’s backers are Target Global, LocalGlobe, and MMC Ventures.

This follows on a seed round that raised an initial $1.3 million in 2018 to build its custody and prime brokerage offerings, and onboard its first institutional clients. Its custody solution now covers 96% of global crypto liquidity and is seeing over £500 million in transactions each month.

Copper also provides prime brokerage services Nickel Digital Asset Management, a U.K.-regulated institutional manager of digital assets. Fidelity Digital Assets is that fund’s prime custodian.

This is an example of how solutions built for institutions remain incomplete in crypto, says Dmitry Tokarev, founder and CEO at Copper. He is former CTO and partner at Dolphin Wealth Management.

It is also one of the few digital asset custodians insured against crime, including theft of fiat or digital assets, with a policy brokered by Aon in London.

Copper’s backers have track records investing in other fintech and related companies. Berlin-based Target Global backed Rapyd, Auto1, Delivery Hero and wefox. U.K. firm LocalGlobe invested in Transferwise, Zoopla and Citymapper. London-based MMC Ventures seeded Gousto, Interactive Investor and NewVoiceMedia.