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S&P Global leads $110m into the crypto data vendor whose indices already carry its name
Kaiko's $110m was more than three-fifths of everything disclosed in crypto venture funding in the week to September 18. It came from the index provider whose crypto products already carry Kaiko's reference rates.
The Investor · Invest desk
What happened
- Crypto and blockchain companies announced at least $180.25m in disclosed financing across nine deals between September 12 and September 18, on data from Crypto Fundraising and company announcements.
- Kaiko's $110m round, led by S&P Global, was the largest crypto financing announced in the week.
- Fin.com raised a $20m seed round from Expa, Coinbase Ventures, Tenet Fund and Second Sight Ventures, with Uber co-founder Garrett Camp also taking part.
Compiled by The InvestorSomething wrong?How this is made
Why it matters
- decision S&P Global is now an equity holder in its index supplier, so it can renew the data agreement on arm's length terms or buy the company that feeds the co-branded product.
- capability The exchanges and banks in the round can price tokenised and crypto products off a data source they part-own. The reference rates behind those products are now partly in-house.
- exposure dtcpay's register now includes SBI Holdings, which gives a large Japanese financial group a position in stablecoin settlement for retail, hospitality and cross-border merchants.
- contradiction Two of the nine deals disclosed no terms and the tally counts equity rounds only, so the week cannot be read as a measurement of institutions choosing companies over tokens.
Take Kaiko out and the other eight deals disclosed $70.25m between them [2]. Four rounds, Kaiko's plus Fin.com, dtcpay and Tare, account for $158.25m of the $180.25m [3], so the three remaining deals that put a number on paper shared about $22m [4], roughly $7m each [5].
S&P Global led the round in a company whose indices and reference rates it had already agreed to combine with S&P Dow Jones Indices' crypto products under the S&P Kaiko Digital Asset Indices brand [6]. The report does not disclose Kaiko's valuation or the size of the stake [15]. S&P Global also bought OpenZeppelin outright during the same period, an acquisition the weekly total excludes [13].
Kaiko sells market data, indices and reference rates covering more than 150 crypto exchanges and decentralised protocols [4], and said it would use the money to improve its data services and expand its product range [5]. Further down the list, Janus Henderson Investors joined Blockchain Capital in Tare's $13.25m seed for onchain credit infrastructure [11]. Fin.com's $20m went to a payments network the company says reaches regulated payment systems in more than 30 countries and supports over 40 currencies [8].
I'd expect S&P Global to end up owning Kaiko: it led the round, its index business already carries the co-branded product, and it is buying in this sector outright. Two other readings fit the same facts. The index agreement may be non-exclusive, and the equity a way to fund a supplier that keeps selling to Nasdaq, BNP Paribas, Royal Bank of Canada and the other institutions sitting beside S&P Global on the cap table [3]. Or the $110m may be growth capital shared among strategic holders who each dilute the others' claim on the asset, in which case nobody buys. A follow-on round led by someone other than S&P Global is the evidence that would break the first reading.
What to watch
- Whether S&P Global later discloses the size of its Kaiko stake or the round's valuation.
- Whether Nasdaq, BNP Paribas or Royal Bank of Canada license the S&P Kaiko reference rates for their own products.
- Whether the next weekly tally holds above roughly $70m once you strip out a single anchor round.