Wells Fargo Invests in Elliptic’s Series B Funding Round

The venture arm of banking giant Wells Fargo has joined the Series B funding round of blockchain forensics firm Elliptic, the companies said in a press release on 13 February.

According to the announcement, Wells Fargo Strategic Capital (WFSC) contributed with a fresh $5 million investment into Elliptic’s Series B funding round, which has now raised more than $28 million. The list of investors that participated in the Series B round include Japan’s SBI Group, Santander InnoVentures, SignalFire, AlbionVC and Octopus Ventures.The Managing Director of WFSC, Basil Darwish, said in a statement:

“Since its inception in 2013, Elliptic has been a pioneer in developing a distinctive array of data sets and transaction monitoring tools. We are excited to invest in Elliptic and to help them execute the next phase of their business plan.”

The fresh investment will not only be used to fuel Elliptic’s expansion in Asia, but also accelerate the firm’s rollout of its newest risk management solution for financial institutions, Elliptic Discovery.

Elliptic’s recently launched tool is designed to help crypto exchanges win banking relationships, as it can let banks identify high-risk customers who transact with crypto exchanges. The firm claims that the new solution has detailed profiles for more than 200 exchanges around the world, which will enable “financial institutions to better manage risk and meet stringent regulatory requirements”. Elliptic’s CEO, James Smith, said in a statement:

“Instead of leaving financial institutions in the dark regarding transactions in the emerging cryptoasset class, our aim is that Elliptic, working with financial institutions, will shine a light on any cryptoasset-linked transaction activity and enable them to manage risk accordingly.”

Claiming to have assessed several trillion dollars worth of transactions, Elliptic has been helping companies investigate and detect illicit use of cryptocurrencies. Last year, the company not only tied around $400 million worth of XRP transactions to a variety of Ponzi schemes and darknet activities, but also published a public dataset of bitcoin transactions associated with money laundering, in partnership with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).