Bakkt Series A valuation estimated at $740 million

• In their first round, Bakkt had raised $182.50 million.
• Jeff Sprecher, the CEO of Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), and CFO Scott Hill announced that Bakkt would be expecting a launch later in 2019.

ICE’s highly-anticipated crypto exchange, Bakkt, is being valued at $740 million following its Series A funding round. In their first round of funding, they raised $182.5 million to build its digital assets service and Bitcoin [BTC] futures product. In that round, they had investors like Boston Consulting Group, Goldfinch Partners, ICE, Microsoft’s VC fund, Pantera Capital, Protocol Ventures and Galaxy Digital.

Its current $740 million post-money valuation means ICE may have sold up to 25% of its shares to external investors like Galaxy, Pantera, Microsoft, and Starbucks. The Block’s source said:  

“From a cash-flow perspective, Bakkt will not be earning much based on their proposed contract fees, so they really need a lot of volume. A lot of things will need to line up for investors to receive returns that they would typically expect for a Series A.”