Barclays And Goldman Sachs Invest In Elwood Trading Platform

Barclays and Goldman Sachs invested in the crypto trading platform Elwood with the head of Sachs saying the demand for crypto from institutions is only rising so let’s read more today in our latest cryptocurrency news.

Barclays and Goldman Sachs joined a $70 million Series A funding round for the institutional crypto trading platform Elwood Technologies which was founded by hedge fund manager Alan Howard. Joining the round were Commerzbank, Galaxy Digital, and Dawn Capital and the fundraising round valued the company at $500 million as per the reprots. Despite the fall in crypto markets, Elwood said it is betting that the traditional financial institutions like hedge funds and banks will be interested in investing in crypto and Elwood’s funding round was agreed to and motion before the drop in prices which was seen when 15% was wiped off the total market cap since May 9.

Elwood Technologies CEO James Stickland said the fundraising was only a validation of the longevity of crypto and brushed off the falling prices from the past few weeks:

“We’re getting investment from financial institutions that aren’t expecting to get massive returns in 15 minutes. They’re investing in the infrastructure, I think it’s a reassurance message.”

Elwood Technologies provides a crypto portfolio management system with some market information and tradign infrastrcuture for institutional investors which features an interface that connects to crypto exchanges, custodians, and liquditiy providers. Commenting on the deal was the head of Goldman Sachs Matthew McDermott saying the investment showed the company continued commitment to crypto and added:

“As institutional demand for cryptocurrency rises, we have been actively broadening our market presence and capabilities to cater for client demand.”

The funding from Goldman Sachs marked the bank’s further expansion into crypto and the investment bank was the first to offer the loans backed by BTC to Coinbase in early May and has seen a lot of interest in the space even referring to digital assets and the metaverse in March. Another case of the Wall Street giant nearing the crypto companies saw a meeting between Goldman CEO David Solomon and the FTX boss Sam Bankman-Fried that included an offer from Solomon and help FTX with more funding rounds and regulatory complaince.

As for Elwood Technologies, it will remain owned by Alan Howard who is the main investor before the Series A round. Howard co-founded the hedge fund Brevan Howard which launched the crypto investment division “BH Digital” in September 2021.