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April 2020
2 PwC I 2nd Global Crypto M&A and Fundraising Report
We are proud to launch the 2nd edition of our Global Crypto M&A and Fundraising Report. We hope that the
market colour and insights from this report will be useful data points. We will continue to publish this report
twice a year to enable you to monitor the ongoing trends in the crypto ecosystem.
PwC has put together a “one stop shop” offering, focused on crypto services across our various lines of
services in over 25 jurisdictions, including the most active crypto jurisdictions. Our goal is to service your
needs in the best possible way leveraging the PwC network and allowing you to make your project a success.
Our crypto clients include crypto exchanges, crypto investors, crypto asset managers, ICOs/IEOs/STOs/stable
and asset backed tokens, traditional financial institutions entering the crypto space as well as governments,
central banks, regulators and other policy makers looking at the crypto ecosystem.
As part of our “one stop shop” offering, we provide an entire range of services to the crypto ecosystem
including strategy, legal, regulatory, accounting, tax, governance, risk assurance, audit, cybersecurity, M&A
advisory as well as capital raising.
The crypto winter continued in 2019 for Asia and EMEA are now home to the There has been increased diversification
crypto fundraising and M&A, with both the majority of crypto fundraising and M&A of the sectors encountering investment
number and value of deals falling deals activity, with a clear shift towards crypto
solutions and peripheral sectors
As the crypto industry continued to mature, fundraising The consolidation in the crypto industry continued in 2019
has trended towards later-stage companies with crypto incumbents driving most of the activity. 9 out of
the top 10 deals were strategic in nature and driven by other
crypto companies or crypto focused funds
Equity fundraising of crypto companies M&A of crypto companies
Deal count (number of) by transaction type Buyers count
662 192
11% 8%
1% 1%
5% Post-seed 540 6%
3% 4%
15% 5%
7% 7%
2% 7% Post-seed
6% 23% 16%
114
10% 8% 1%
11% 18% 3% 4% 2%
11%
16%
71%
59% 42%
56%
2018 2019
2018 2019
Crypto /Blockchain Other Tech Others Crypto focused
Seed NA1 – Early stage companies companies and VCs & Funds
Series A Series B+
Startups
NA1 – Late stage NA2 Established Traditional VCs, PE and Hedge Private
Corporates & incubators and funds investors3
Corporate VCs family offices
Notes: 1) Specific stage was not disclosed 2) Not disclosed 3) Individuals
Undisclosed
Source: MergerMarket, Capital IQ, Crunchbase, Pitchbook, PwC Analysis
5 PwC I 2nd Global Crypto M&A and Fundraising Report
Crypto industry not immune to Further consolidation to take APAC and EMEA to continue
global macro economic conditions place in 2020 playing a bigger role driven in part
by family offices
• The global headwinds caused by • As a consequence of the turbulences in • 2019 saw APAC and EMEA play a
the Coronavirus and other related the global crypto ecosystem and as a bigger role in the global crypto M&A
events are having an impact on continuation of the current trend, we and fundraising space. We expect to
many industries globally, including expect to see further consolidation in see this trend to continue in 2020.
the crypto industry. the industry with some of the larger well • In particular, we expect to see more
• We believe that the crypto industry funded or profitable firms buying some activity from APAC and EMEA based
is not immune to these conditions of the smaller players in the market. family offices looking at the market
and the number and value of • We expect to see some of the larger turbulence as a good time to enter the
fundraising and M&A deals may be players buy firms that offer ancillary market.
impacted as a consequence in services to their current offering
2020. (e.g. crypto media, compliance,
research).
PwC
6 PwC I 2nd Global Crypto M&A and Fundraising Report
Fundraising
PwC
7 PwC I 2nd Global Crypto M&A and Fundraising Report
Global Landscape
The crypto winter continued -18% -40%
for part of 2019, with the
number of equity fundraising 3.72
662
deals for crypto related
companies decreasing by 18% 540
Deal Count by
Geography 662
1%
20% 540
2%
2018 2019
19%
540
540
3%
6% 22%
6%
26% 3%
13% 7%
9%
11% 28%
12%
30%
18% 13%
31%
19%
22%
15%
2018 2019
Other Mining Wallet Compliance & Reg. Payments Crypt. Exchange Trading Infra. Blockchain Infra.
Solutions Trading
Deal Count by
Transaction Type 662
11%
Post-seed
5% 540
3% 15%
7% 7%
2% 7% Post-seed
The crypto industry continues to 6% 23%
11%
becoming a larger portion of
overall crypto fundraising 71%
activity. 59%
2018 2019
1,430
14%
1,208
5%
2% 2% 11%
3%
6% 1% 5%
2%
6%
15% 7%
10%
17%
24%
37%
33%
2018 2019
Traditional VCs, incubators and family offices Crypto focused VCs & Funds Private investors1 Crypto/ Blockchain companies
Established Corporates & Corporate VCs Other Tech companies and Startups PE and Hedge funds Others Undisclosed
Notes: 1) Individual investors
Source: MergerMarket, Capital IQ, Crunchbase, Pitchbook, PwC Analysis
12 PwC I 2nd Global Crypto M&A and Fundraising Report
in 2018 07/08/18
10/05/18
Bitmain
Robinhood
Crimson Ventures
DST Global
715
363
Series B
Series D
Mining
Trading
China
United States
Infrastructure
Tiger Global
30/10/18 Coinbase 300 Series E Wallets United States
Management
Trading
15/05/18 Circle Bitmain 110 Series E United States
Infrastructure
Blockchain
27/09/18 Seba Crypto Undisclosed 104 Unknown Switzerland
Infrastructure
Compliance &
18/01/18 Ledger Draper Esprit 75 Series B France
Regulation
Note*: Based on information from online databases as well as media reports. Excluded deals with undisclosed
amounts or potential fraud deals.
Source: MergerMarket, Capital IQ, Crunchbase, Pitchbook, CoinDesk, CoinTelegraph and PwC Analysis
13 PwC I 2nd Global Crypto M&A and Fundraising Report
Tetragon Financial
20/12/19 Ripple 200 Series C Payments United States
Group 13
ST Blockchain Crypto
15/04/19 Bithumb 200 Series A South Korea
Exchange
…however, in 2019, there was a
Fund
Morgan Creek
shift towards crypto solution 05/12/19
Figure
Technologies
Capital
Management
103 Series C Other United States
coming from the United States. 10/07/19 Anchorage Blockchain Capital 40 Series B Wallets United States
Note*: Based on information from online databases as well as media reports. Excluded deals with undisclosed
amounts or potential fraud deals.
Source: MergerMarket, Capital IQ, Crunchbase, Pitchbook, CoinDesk, CoinTelegraph and PwC Analysis
14 PwC I 2nd Global Crypto M&A and Fundraising Report
Top 5 Investors in
Equity fundraising of crypto companies
2019 Top 5 investors by deal count*
Fundraising Deals
Rank Investor name Selected investments
ConsenSys and
1 ErisX, BlockFi, Coinhouse, Ligero
affiliated investors
Digital Currency
3 Figure Technologies, CoinFLEX, Curv, Digital Assets Data
Group
While 2018 saw some 4 Fenbushi Digital Securitize, BloXroute Labs, MEXDM, AlphaWallet
traditional VCs and incubators 5 Pantera Capital ThunderCore, ErisX, Tagomi Systems, Blockfolio
Andreessen
3 Coinbase, Celo, Harbor, Compound
Horowitz
Note*: Based on information from online databases as well as media reports. Excluded deals with undisclosed
amounts or potential fraud deals.
Source: MergerMarket, Capital IQ, Crunchbase, Pitchbook, CoinDesk, CoinTelegraph and PwC Analysis
15 PwC I 2nd Global Crypto M&A and Fundraising Report
M&A
PwC
16 PwC I 2nd Global Crypto M&A and Fundraising Report
Landscape
-40% -76%
1,890
189
27.0m 17.2m
Note*: Deal value and average deal size excluded deals with undisclosed amounts or potential fraud deals.
Source: MergerMarket, Capital IQ, Crunchbase, Pitchbook, PwC Analysis
17 PwC I 2nd Global Crypto M&A and Fundraising Report
Count by Geography
189
1%
14%
53%
2018 2019
Count by Sector
189
10%
2%
2019 saw less M&A in the 16% 8%
6%
crypto mining sector but a Increased “Other” deals
Trading
16%
114
8% 1%
18% 3% 4% 2%
11%
16%
42%
56%
2018 2019
Crypto/ Blockchain companies Other Tech companies and Startups Others Crypto focused VCs & Funds
Established Corporates & Corporate VC Traditional VCs, incubators and family offices Private investors2 PE and Hedge funds Undisclosed
Notes: 1) Certain deals have more than 1 buyer 2) Individual investors
Source: MergerMarket, Capital IQ, Crunchbase, Pitchbook, PwC Analysis
20 PwC I 2nd Global Crypto M&A and Fundraising Report
Crypto
Target Country
Crypto
26/02/18 Poloniex Circle 400 United States
Exchange
Crypto
Mining and Crypto Exchange 12/10/18 BTC Korea BK Global 354
Exchange
South Korea
accounted for 7 out of the top 26/04/18 Earn.com Coinbase 120 Other United States
Crypto
10/10/18 Zaif Fisco 49 Japan
Exchange
Global Blockchain
17/12/18 X2 Games 37 Canada
Blockchain Infrastructure
Note*: Based on information from online databases as well as media reports. Excluded deals with undisclosed
amounts or potential fraud deals.
Source: MergerMarket, Capital IQ, Crunchbase, Pitchbook, CoinDesk, CoinTelegraph and PwC Analysis
21 PwC I 2nd Global Crypto M&A and Fundraising Report
Deals in 2019
Announce Amount
Date Target Acquirer (USD in mn) Sector Target Country
Crypto Trading
04/02/19 Kraken 100 United Kingdom
Facilities infrastructure
18/01/19 Coins.ph Go-Jek 72 Wallets Philippines
15/08/19 Xapo Coinbase 55 Wallets United States
CoinGeek
businesses pursuing strategic 06/08/19 Quid Animoca Brands 8 Others United States
M&A.
21/11/19 WazirX Binance.com 8 Crypto Exchange India
9 Blockbox
ACTM Data
Hut 8 Mining
09/09/19 Centers of 7 Mining United States
Corp.
BitFury
Group**
Note*: Based on information from online databases as well as media reports. Excluded deals with
undisclosed amounts or potential fraud deals.
Note**: Asset purchase deal
Source: MergerMarket, Capital IQ, Crunchbase, Pitchbook, CoinDesk, CoinTelegraph and PwC Analysis
22 PwC I 2nd Global Crypto M&A and Fundraising Report
• Help develop your value • Critically evaluate value • Assess operating models • Whether you are investing • Help you realise value from
creation plan, leveraging drivers of your proposed (e.g. IT and HR) leveraging in a startup or mature your investment by
deep sector insights from investment through experts with in the field business, we help you converting your plan into
our global crypto team financial and commercial experience and identify potential tax deliverable actions
lenses to help you validate benchmarking tools to exposure and develop
• Perform competitor scans • Design packages to retain
your value creation plan identify performance gaps practical solutions
and develop market entry and incentivise key
and rapid improvements
strategies that reflect the • Manage your entire • Draft and review your legal management and tools to
current and expected acquisition or divestment • Identify and challenge docs considering legal, tax, ensure cultural alignment
market sentiment towards process as your lead M&A operational synergies accounting and commercial and integration
crypto advisor perspectives to mitigate
• Assess carve-out issues • Provide you with tools to
value leakage
• Tap into our deep network • Help you decipher how and form a view of the go help you monitor your
to help you find capital fluctuations in crypto prices forward cost base • Develop tax efficient investment, track the value
providers or strategic and valuations will drive structures that are also being created and
• Quantify the investment
partners, with crypto your pricing flexible to withstand the communicate this to your
needs of the business to
exposure and the appetite evolving crypto regulatory stakeholders
deliver the strategy
to bring your value creation landscape
• Help you design and
plan to life • Test and analyse data to
• Assist with regulatory implement best in market
help you validate the
applications governance and controls
growth story
About PwC
Henri Arslanian Thomas Crasti Oscar Fung Matthew Phillips
At PwC, our purpose is to build trust in
Hong Kong-China Hong Kong-China Hong Kong-China Hong Kong SAR
society and solve important problems.
We are a network of firms in 158 E: henri.arslanian@hk.pwc.com E: thomas.m.crasti@hk.pwc.com E: oscar.sk.fung@hk.pwc.com E: matthew.phillips@hk.pwc.com
countries with more than 250,000 people
who are committed to delivering quality
in assurance, advisory and tax services. Lucy Gazmararian Chikako Suzuki Thomas Campione Luke Walsh
Hong Kong-China Japan Luxembourg Gibraltar
The PwC Global Crypto Team is E: lucy.gazmararian@hk.pwc.com E: chikako.suzuki@pwc.com E: thomas.campione@pwc.com E: luke.walsh@gi.pwc.com
composed of over 150 professionals
active in over 25 countries that offer a
“one stop shop” solution for our crypto Guenther Dobrauz-Saldapenna Adrian Keller Henrik Olsson Pauline Adam-Kalfond
clients across our multiple lines of
Switzerland Switzerland Sweden France
service. Our clients range from crypto
exchanges, crypto funds and E: guenther.dobrauz@ch.pwc.com E: adrian.keller@ch.pwc.com E: henrik.Olsson@se.pwc.com E: pauline.adam-kalfond @fr.pwc.com
ICO/IEO/STOs to traditional financial
institutions moving into the crypto space,
as well as national regulators with
regards to their crypto policies.
Best Practices for Token Sale 2019 Crypto Hedge Fund Report SOC 1 & 2 Report for Crypto 4th ICO / STO Report
Service Providers
Fintech Association of Hong This report provides an overview
Kong published guidelines to of the global crypto hedge fund A report that provides guidance A Report that provides a strategic
help firms run potentially- landscape and offers insights into to the current regulatory perspective on the current
successful token sales in the quantitative elements. landscape and crypto service conditions of ICO / STO
APAC Region. PwC was a providers best practices. Fundraising globally.
contributing organisation
Accounting Considerations Emergence of Stable Value Crypto Insolvency IFRS & the Swiss Code of
under IFRS Coins Obligations
How to recognise, measure and The paper explores and Ten things every director of a Article that addresses
disclose activities associated with compares Stable Coins, a crypto firm needs to know when Cryptographic assets in the
the issuances of, and the category of Cryptographic Token things start to go wrong. context of IFRS.
investment in, the various types that seeks to maintain stable
https://www.pwc.ch/en/insights/di
of cryptographic assets. value to a referenced asset.
sclose/29/cryptographic-
assets.html
Distributed Ledger Technology Blockchain in Asset Introduction to Token Sales ASFIMA Best Practices for
Management (ICO) Best Practices Digital Asset Exchanges
Monographic paper from an
initiative managed to create a Monographic report on the Monographic report on the ICO A guide outlining the best
common understanding of the methods and benefits of applying market, structure, best practices practices, regulatory
distributed ledger technology Blockchain in the asset and areas of ICO. considerations and issues of
between ten key players, and management sector. digital asset exchanges. PwC
outline concept using Blockchain was a contributing organisation
in asset management/fund-
distribution value chain.
Deal Announced deals were used in the analysis. Some announced deals might not go on to complete, where deals have failed to complete, we have removed them
announcement from our data set.
Deal count The deal count figures presented in this report refer to the number of deals announced, whether or not a value is disclosed for the deal
The deal value figures presented in this report refer only to those deals where a value has been disclosed, and the value is based on the historical consideration in
Deal value
$. Deals with questionable/fraudulent amounts have been removed based on media reports to provide a more .
Geography Geography refers to the headquarter region of the target entity conducting the fundraise or the main location of acquired target
Sectors refers to the main type of business that the target company has identified with. This includes (“Blockchain Infrastructure”, “Trading Infrastructure”,
“Mining”, “Crypto Exchanges”, “Wallet”, “Payments”, “Compliance and regulatory related services”). While there are new peripheral businesses such as media,
Sectors
data research, consulting and wealth management business, they did not amount to a significant proportion and was grouped under “Others” for a clearer
presentation.
Transaction type refers to the stage of the fundraising transaction. These stages includes (“Seed”, “Undisclosed – Early Stage”, “Series A”, “Series B+”,
“Undisclosed – Late stage” and “Undisclosed”). Due to limitations in data platform and availability of information, certain deals have been tagged as early stage or
Transaction Type
late stage without a precise detail of funding round. Where possible, we have cross referenced these information across the source platforms to identify the stages
of the fundraise and have updated our data set.
Investor/Acquirer types includes (“Traditional Venture Capitals, incubators and family offices”, “Crypto focused Venture Capitals & Funds”, “Private Equity & Hedge
funds”, “Private investors”, “Crypto/Blockchain companies”, “Other Tech companies and Startups”, “Established Corporates & Corporate Venture Capitals”,
“Others” and “Undisclosed”). Where the differentiation between crypto focused VCs vs traditional VCs are based on the whether the fund promotes themselves as
being a crypto/blockchain focused fund and whether their previous investments have been primarily crypto or blockchain companies. Private Equity & Hedge
funds includes funds that brands themselves as private equity and did not identify themselves as VC investors. Private investors are individuals named in a
Investor/Acquirer
transaction without affiliation to any companies in that transaction. Crypto/ Blockchain companies are companies whose main business revolve around crypto
Type
assets or blockchain technologies. Other Tech companies and Startups represents companies which did not promote themselves as having previous involvement
in crypto assets, operate digitally or are involved in the following business (Artificial intelligence, Big data, e-commerce, or other internet enabled companies).
Established corporates and Corporate VCs are classified based on a composite of factors including (Listing status & market cap on traditional exchanges, number
of employees, years of operations as well as general reputation). “Others” includes companies that do not fit any of the above categories or do not have any easily
identifiable characteristics.
The information contained in this publication is of a general nature only. It is not meant to be comprehensive and does not constitute the rendering of legal, tax or other
professional advice or service by PricewaterhouseCoopers International Limited ("PwC"). PwC has no obligation to update the information as law and practices change.
The application and impact of laws can vary widely based on the specific facts involved. Before taking any action, please ensure that you obtain advice specific to your
circumstances from your usual PwC client service team or your other advisers.
The materials contained in this publication were assembled on March 2020 and were based on 2018 and 2019 data obtained in February 2020.
© 2020 PricewaterhouseCoopers International Limited. All rights reserved. PwC refers to the Hong Kong member firm, and may sometimes refer to the PwC network.
Each member firm is a separate legal entity. Please see www.pwc.com/structure for further details.