Singapore’s Crypto Staking Startup Garners $6 Million In Amber Group-Led Funding Round

RockX announced on Tuesday it has raised $6 million in a fundraising round led by Singapore-based crypto financial services firm Amber Group. The deal values the three-year-old crypto staking platform at $30 million.

Matrixport, the Singapore-headquartered crypto financial venture established by tycoon Jihan Wu, as well as Draper Dragon, the venture fund cofounded by billionaire Tim Draper, have also participated in the funding round, RockX said in a statement. Other investors include FBG Capital, Primitive Ventures and IMO Ventures, among others.

RockX said it will use the fresh capital to enhance its product and service offerings. The firm will also use the funds to expand its team, which RockX said has already doubled headcount since the beginning of this year.

“The strong support we are seeing in our inaugural round of capital raising is a testament to the potential and strength of our business,” Chen Zhuling, founder and CEO of RockX, said in the statement. “The trust and confidence our investors have placed in us makes us uniquely positioned to become the leading global staking and data services provider.”

Established in 2019, RockX is a crypto staking platform that targets institutional and high-net-worth individuals. The firm said it has nearly $1 billion in assets under management.

Staking is similar to saving accounts with traditional banks, which allows traders to earn interest by depositing crypto tokens for a fixed period of time. The tokens will be used by the platform to verify transactions on blockchain.

This investment instrument has gained ground due to its tempting annual yield rate, which can reach triple digits, compared to less than 1% of traditional banks. The staking market was worth more than $320 billion in the year ended October 2021, up from $21 billion the same period in the previous year, according to data provider Staking Rewards.

However, staking also involves high risk as prices of cryptocurrencies are volatile. Traders may suffer a large price drop of their staked crypto assets that outweighs the interests they earn.