The company 21.co was founded as the parent company of 21Shares, Amun and Onyx. Headquartered in Zug, Switzerland, with offices in Zurich and New York, the company is becoming the highest valued startup in Crypto Valley with a valuation of around USD 2 billion and raised around USD 25 million in a funding round.
This round values the business at approximately $2 billion, making the startup Switzerland’s largest crypto unicorn. With this round of financing, 21.co will continue to drive rapid, targeted growth through first-of-their-kind products, key market expansions and strategic talent acquisitions. Other investors in the round include Collab+Currency, Quiet Ventures, ETFS Capital and Valor Equity Partners.
Upswing despite unfavorable market environment
In addition to funding, the company also announced its new parent company, 21.co. The firm is a collection of companies, the largest of which is 21Shares, the world’s largest issuer of cryptocurrency exchange traded products (ETPs). In addition to Amun, a token provider focused on making the DeFi world more accessible.
This round was raised during Crypto Winter. It was the company’s first raise in over two years, a testament to the company’s early success and growing investor demand in the asset class. To prove such investor demand, the company ended 2021 on a nine-figure revenue run rate and has seen sustained inflows, even during down markets. Year-to-date, from September 2021 to September 2022, the firm recorded over $650 million in net new assets, and hit its peak AuM at $3 billion in November of 2021. To support this rapid business growth, 21.co grew its headcount 75% during this period.
A Swiss success story
Launched in 2018, by Ophelia Snyder and Hany Rashwan, 21.co was founded to build bridges into the crypto world. Since then, the company has been on a tremendous journey to stay at the forefront of the market by providing investors with the most innovative crypto exchange-traded products (ETPs), the broadest token solutions, a decentralized software platform to create, list and manage ETPs globally and more forward-thinking solutions - all powered by free institutional-grade research to educate investors about the evolving industry.
"My co-founder, Ophelia, and I set out with a simple mission to make crypto more accessible. Now, we’re the highest valued and largest tech startup in Switzerland and we’re still only in the early days. 21.co remains committed to building innovative products that meet investor demand as this asset class continues to gain rapid momentum.” - Hany Rashwan, CEO and Co-Founder at 21.co