BARCLAYS, GOLDMAN BACK NEW CRYPTO PLATFORM

Goldman Sachs and British bank Barclays are part of a new $70-million funding round for five-year-old Ellwood Technologies, a cryptocurrency trading platform created by Alan Howard, a British hedge fund billionaire.

Other investors include Dawn Capital, Galaxy Digital, and Germany’s Commerzbank.

This new round of funding valued Ellwood at about $500 million.

The round was closed before this month’s collapse of crypto prices, which brought Bitcoin below $30,000 for the first time since last July. 

The robust funding round downplays the recent market flub and shows “another validation of the longevity of crypto,” Ellwood CEO James Strickland told the Financial Times. 

“We’re getting investment from financial institutions that aren’t expecting massive returns in 15 minutes,” he said. “They’re investing in the infrastructure. It’s a reassuring message.”

The new funding round helps move Ellwood away from its earlier purpose of offering and managing crypto funds for institutional investors.

Now the company is selling the technology it has developed to manage its own crypto portfolio, the FT reported.

“Unless you get comfort around the quality of the underlying architecture, you’re never going to get the volume to match the opportunity,” Strickland said.

Alan Howard remains Ellwood’s majority owner.