(Note: This is only for publication in the flipbook)
(Also note: This version follows AP style, unlike the version that — er, somebody — re-published on the website, with “Governor Ned Lamont,” “November” and so on. Hence Kevin’s taking his name off of it. Good luck!)
Connecticut is getting further into the cryptocurrency and blockchain sector with the arrival of a major corporate tenant in that fast-growing sector.
On Nov. 29, Gov. Ned Lamont announced that Digital Currency Group (DCG), an investor in bitcoin and blockchain technology companies, plans to relocate its headquarters from New York City to Stamford. The company is expected to create more than 300 jobs in Connecticut over the next five years.
Earlier this year, DCG quietly signed a lease in the Shippan Landing complex located at 290 Harbor Drive in Stamford. That space, which spans more than 90,000 square feet of office space, is now under renovation and the company expects to occupy its new headquarters in late 2022.
“Attracting new investment and job creation opportunities to Connecticut is a top priority for our administration and today”™s announcement is another indication that we are seeing results,” Lamont said. “Digital Currency Group”™s decision to relocate their headquarters here is the latest example of how Connecticut is the ideal location for leading-edge companies that are focused on business growth.”
Founded in 2015 by Barry Silbert, the company”™s CEO and formerly founder and chairman of the investment advisory SecondMarket, DCG is a global investment company that has financed more than 200 blockchain companies. It is the parent company of seven wholly-owned subsidiaries that have emerged as digital asset leaders.
The DCG subsidiaries include Grayscale Investments, the world”™s largest digital currency asset manager with more than $50 billion in assets under management; Genesis, a full-service digital currency prime brokerage and one of the leading institutional trading and lending firms in the world; Luno, a consumer-focused digital asset platform that provides digital asset education and investment tools to more than nine million customers in Africa, Asia, and Europe; Foundry, which powers decentralized infrastructure with better capital access, efficiency, and transparency in digital currency mining and staking, and hosts North America”™s largest bitcoin mining pool; CoinDesk, a financial media, data, index and events company; and TradeBlock, which has developed a widely-used institutional trading platform.
“We”™ve solidified our premier market position in recent years through the development and growth of our diversified subsidiaries, continued expansion of our investment portfolio, and via acquisitions,” said DCG Chief Financial Officer Michael Kraines. “This debt financing is an important milestone to ensure DCG continues to play a leading role in the financing and development of this remarkably dynamic sector.”
Several of the DCG subsidiaries will be relocating with its parent company to Stamford, which DCG picked after considering sites in New Jersey and New York.
“It quickly became clear that Connecticut had everything we were looking for in a new headquarters,” Silbert said. “Its proximity to major metropolitan areas combined with its infrastructure, talent, business-friendly environment, and world-class facilities to house our rapidly-growing organization made it an easy choice. We are committed to making our new home in Stamford a hub for the next generation of fintech and blockchain entrepreneurs.”
The Connecticut Department of Economic and Community Development has announced that it will provide a grant in arrears up to $5,011,800 to DCG to facilitate its relocation, contingent on the company creating and retaining more than 300 new full-time Stamford jobs.
The new Stamford headquarters is the latest development in DCG’s very active fourth quarter. On Nov. 1, DCG announced that it raised $700 million in an investment round, which the Wall Street Journal identified as the second-largest in the crypto sector. The funding round valued the company at $10 billion and was led by SoftBank Group Corp.”™s Vision Fund 2 and Latin America Fund, and included GIC, Ribbit Capital and Alphabet Inc.”™s CapitalG.
On Nov. 18, the company announced the completion of a debt capital raise that provided a credit facility of up to $600 million. The financing marked the company”™s first entry into the debt capital markets and follows a recent $700 million secondary equity transaction led by SoftBank Group.
According to Silbert, the debt financing enhanced DCG”™s strategic, operational, and financial capabilities by reducing DCG”™s cost of capital and fueling the growth of its investment portfolio and wholly-owned subsidiaries.
“This financing strengthens our ability to respond dynamically to opportunities in the market,” said Silbert. “We”™re very pleased to partner with this cohort of high-quality institutional lenders and, as a profitable and rapidly growing company, we are fortunate to be able to access this growth financing with an attractive cost of capital.”
