Kraken Announces Series B Funding from Money Partners Group

April 12, 2016, San Francisco, USA - Bitcoin, Ethereum and digital asset exchange Kraken announced today that it has received an undisclosed investment in its Series B funding round from Money Partners Group, one of Japan’s leading foreign exchange brokers.

Tokyo-based Money Partners Group is a Tokyo-listed company with a market capitalization of more than 29 billion yen (about $260 million). Terms of the investment transaction between the two companies were not disclosed. In February this year, Kraken received investment from Japanese venture capital group SBI, and Kraken opened its Series B financing after receiving a multi-million dollar investment.

As one of the largest foreign exchange brokers in Japan, Money Partners Group provides foreign exchange, securities trading and CFD services to more than 270,000 customers through its network. Today, Money Partners Group announced that it will cooperate with Kraken to expand its business, providing customers with Bitcoin trading, Bitcoin settlement services and blockchain product trading. In addition, the purpose of Money Partners Group's investment is to enhance Kraken's global influence.

Taizen Okuyama, President and Representative of the Board of Directors of Money Partners Group, said:

“Cryptocurrency and blockchain technology will make digital and digitized assets commonplace in the future world. The company is committed to staying at the forefront of the financial industry and creating new and exciting opportunities for customers. The scale of Ethereum and Bitcoin has become too large to ignore. Kraken has extensive experience in this industry, its leadership has been proven, and it also has a professional management team, a strong compliance program and world-class technology. Kraken is undoubtedly the ideal partner for us to enter this new ecosystem. We are very excited about the advantages that Kraken will bring to us in this cooperation.”

Taizen Okuyama

Commenting on today’s announcement, Kraken CEO Jesse Powell said:

“Money Partners Group’s investment further validates our long-term strategy for the digital asset trading business. Financial services firms want to understand what their partners are doing – that’s why Money Partners Group chose Kraken. We are excited to have a partner with such foresight and experience. Our new relationship will have tremendous benefits for Bitcoin and Ethereum awareness and adoption around the world. Our work will show other financial institutions why they need to embrace digital assets and blockchain technology.”

Jesse Powell

Money Partner Group’s investment comes at a time of tremendous growth for Kraken, which has seen a 4x increase in new users (compared to the fourth quarter of 2015) since announcing its acquisitions of Coinsetter and Cavirtex in January.

Kraken has grown at a breakneck pace, with BTC/USD trading increasing 10x, BTC/CAD increasing 30x, BTC/JPY increasing 15x, and BTC/GBP increasing 5x. As the price of Ethereum skyrocketed, Ethereum trading volume for all currently supported currencies increased 5x in the first few months of 2016.

Original article: http://themerkle.com/kraken-receives-series-b-investment-from-money-partners-group/
Author:Mark
Compiled by: Kyle
Source (translation): Babbitt Information (http://www.8btc.com/kraken-receives-series-b-investment)