Arca Digital Asset Investment Fund Scores $10M in Series A Funding Round

Digital asset management outfit Arca has secured $10 million in Series A funding as the company sets out to bootstrap its expansion in the emerging fintech scene. Crypto asset management firms are also seeing increasing inflows as investor appetite for digital assets continue to grow.

RRE Ventures Leads $10M Arca Funding Round

Arca announced the news of its $10 million Series A funding via a press release issued on Jan. 13. According to the press statement, RRE Ventures led the investment into the digital asset management firm. Apart from getting equity, some investors like RRE’s founder James Robinson will also take up advisory roles in the Arca board moving forward.

For Arca, the company plans to leverage the funding received to create a robust infrastructure base while maintaining strict compliance with regulatory protocols. As part of the announcement, Arca revealed that its main focus revolves around delivering premium digital asset investment opportunities for its clientele.

Commenting on the successful funding round, the company’s CEO Rayne Steinberg remarked:

“We believe that the introduction of digital assets as a capital formation and growth bootstrapping mechanism is the greatest innovation in financial services since the Dutch East India Company issued shares of its business to the public in the 1600s. Arca is helping guide investors through this massive transformation by providing what we see as the right products, at the right time, to the right investors.”

Arca’s Series A funding marks another milestone for the firm after the strides made in 2020. In June 2020, the company received approval from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to launch its Ethereum-based fund.

Despite mixed results in the crypto fund market following the ‘Black Thursday’ panic of mid-Mar. 2020, Arca announced a 77% performance on its cryptocurrency-focused hedge fund in July 2020.

Hedge Funds Show Increased Appetite for Crypto

With the cryptocurrency market on a tear since Q4 2020, hedge funds and asset managers both within and outside the sector appear to be pursuing greater crypto exposure. Indeed, noted hedge fund manager Paul Tudor Jones caused quite a stir in the market when he announced his Bitcoin (BTC) acquisition move back in May 2020.

In Dec. 2020, One River Asset Management announced a $600 million acquisition of Bitcoin with plans for further exposure to the largest crypto by market capitalization. According to hedge fund manager Bill Miller, institutional funds could start a Bitcoin torrent.

However, the bullish price advance at the start of 2021 seems to have triggered a wave of profit-taking, with institutional inflows in crypto funds declining by about 97%. Meanwhile, Grayscale has announced that it is once more accepting new clients for its crypto Trusts products.