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Chainalysis hopes the strategic investment will help it further
its expansion plans in Asia, Chief Executive Michael Gronager,
said in an interview.
"We are looking into opening an office in Japan in the next year
or so, but we don't yet have a specific timeline," Gronager
said.
Chainalysis is known for its work in helping law enforcement,
regulators, and businesses including banks track flows of
cryptocurrency to spot illicit activity.
While big banks have largely steered clear of investing in the
nascent asset class, they provide banking services to companies
in the space and are required to conduct anti-money laundering
and other checks on their clients' flows.
"Chainalysis' compliance technology is important to providing
the insight and anti-money laundering controls banks need in
order to establish next generation compliance frameworks," said
Nobutake Suzuki, president and chief executive of MUFG's
corporate venture capital arm MUFG Innovation Partners, which
carried out the investment.
Chainalysis has been growing in the Asia Pacific region, having
more than doubled the number of clients there over the past
year, the company said. Contracted revenue from clients in the
region has grown more than 16 times, it said.
Koichiro Nakamura, a managing director at Sozo Ventures, said
his firm was drawn to invest by Chainalysis' plans to provide
its services to banks and other large financial firms. "That is
a very interesting and potentially huge market," Nakamura said
in an interview.
The investment follows a $30 million fundraising round from
venture firms Accel and Benchmark in February.
(Reporting by Anna Irrera; Editing by Chris Reese)
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