Circle Acquires Crowdfunding Platform and Broker-Dealer SeedInvest

Published at: Oct. 6, 2018

Cryptocurrency finance company Circle Internet Financial Ltd. has acquired equity crowdfunding platform and broker-dealer SeedInvest, according to an announcement published October 5. Exact terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

New York-based SeedInvest was founded in 2012 as a startup investing platform. Since then, the company has reportedly raised capital for 220 firms through more than 240,000 investors. The average investment per company through SeedInvest is said to be $500,000, while the largest investment was$2,000,000.

Once the acquisition is approved by the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), it will reportedly enable Circle to expand SeedInvest’s offerings to support cryptocurrencies, including fiat stablecoins and issuing and offering tokenized securities.

Additionally, companies will reportedly be able to raise capital through a regulated platform, get access to retail investor portfolios via Circle Invest, and provide investors with secondary market liquidity on Circle’s cryptocurrency exchange. Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire told Bloomberg in an interview:

“This was a company who had been at the forefront of collaborating with government to figure out how to make it possible to innovate in the way people raise capital. Crypto securities are going to become a major new category of securities that ultimately every business is going to adopt, just like every business has a website.”

Earlier this week, Circle launched a new feature for its crypto investment app Circle Invest dubbed “Collections,” that gives customers the option to invest in one or more collections of crypto assets, each divided according to a particular theme: “Platforms, Payments, and Privacy.”  After choosing a collection category, users can invest in the entire category in one swoop.

In September, Circle launched a USD-backed digital token dubbed the “USD Coin (USDC).” Per Circle, over 20 companies are about to announce support for USDC, while others might add trading through the open ERC-20 standard.

Circle was founded in 2013 by investment banking and management giant Goldman Sachs. The company offers four products including Circle Pay, which is a fiat money sending service with a social messaging component, and Circle Trade, which is a liquidity provider of cryptocurrencies and reportedly moves over $2 billion each month.

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