Bakkt, a digital assets and Bitcoin futures platform founded by Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), raised $182.5 million in first-round funding.
Why it matters: The battered Bitcoin community has been eagerly awaiting the launch of a physically settled futures market with the institutional imprimatur of ICE, which also owns the New York Stock Exchange. But Bakkt's funding announcement was married to another delay. Original plans were to go live in November, which was then pushed back to Jan. 24 and now is TBD as Bakkt awaits permission from a CFTC that is in government shutdown mode.
- Investors include ICE, Horizon Ventures, Boston Consulting Group, CMT Digital, Eagle Seven, Galaxy Digital, Goldfinch Partners, M12, Pantera Capital, Naspers and Protocol Ventures.
- The bottom line: "The path to developing new markets is rarely linear: progress tends to modulate between innovation, dismissal, reinvention, and, finally, acceptance," says Bakkt CEO Kelly Loeffler.
