Edward Woodford, founder and CEO of crypto infrastructure firm zerohash.<\/p>\n
Courtesy: zerohash<\/p>\n
Crypto infrastructure startup Zerohash<\/a> has raised $104 million in funding with backing from financial firms including Morgan Stanley<\/a> and SoFi,<\/a> CNBC has learned.<\/p>\n The Series D round was led by Interactive Brokers<\/a>, the global automated trading firm, and includes strategic investors who are also clients of Zerohash, founder and CEO Edward Woodford told CNBC in an interview. The company is valued at $1 billion, he said.<\/p>\n “We wanted to raise from the largest, most trusted brands in the world and have that be the bridge into this new technology,” he said.<\/p>\n Funds managed by Apollo<\/a> also participated in the round, according to Zerohash.<\/p>\n The startup is among a wave of firms, both publicly traded and privately held, taking advantage of the more favorable regulatory environment for cryptocurrencies under President Donald Trump.<\/p>\n After Trump took office this year, the government flipped from being highly skeptical of crypto under former Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Gary Gensler to embracing it as a nascent technology.<\/p>\n Suddenly, the CEOs of financial firms including Morgan Stanley and Bank of America<\/a> were expressing confidence<\/a> that they would get involved. SoFi\u00a0CEO\u00a0Anthony Noto<\/a>\u00a0told CNBC in April that he was ready to bring crypto trading back<\/a> after the regulatory shift.<\/p>\n Founded in 2017, Zerohash provides banks and fintech firms with the ability to offer blockchain-based products in three major areas: crypto trading, stablecoins and tokenization, according to Woodford.<\/p>\n “Part of this raise is obviously accelerating [adoption] across all three of those verticals with a range of customers who are also investors,” he said.<\/p>\n