Further Ventures, the venture capital arm backed by Abu Dhabi’s largest sovereign wealth fund, ADQ, has invested in French crypto wallet technology firm Dfns.
The venture capital arm led the successful completion of the $16 million Series A funding round, welcoming new investors, including Motive Partners, Wintermute and Motier Ventures, alongside existing backers like White Star Capital, Hashed, Semantic, Techstars, and others.
Dfns to expand to UAE
Following the $13 million seed round in 2022, Dfns’s Series A funding positions the company to accelerate the global adoption of its multichain wallet APIs and infrastructure throughout 2025 and beyond.
The firm, which enables businesses to manage digital assets on blockchains, seeks to drive adoption across banks, neobanks, payment services, trading platforms, investment applications, tokenization projects, and government and corporate treasuries.
Moreover, it aims to fund administrators, with a strategic emphasis on the EU, UK, UAE, and US markets.
Five years after its launch in 2020, Dfns supports over 130 fintechs across every continent, including industry leaders like Fidelity, Bridge, Zodia Custody, ADQ-backed Tungsten Custody and many others.
Read: Abu Dhabi’s ADQ plans to acquire Aramex, bolster logistics holdings
Focus shifts to institutional clients
The company has maintained an impressive 300 percent year-over-year growth since 2021 after it made a strategic upmarket move focusing on institutional clients. Institutional investors are the key to crypto adoption as they control the lion’s share of global liquidity. To meet their standards, Dfns built its foundation on security and zero trust principles, leveraging state-of-the-art technology to exceed expectations.
As blockchain assets grow in value, so do the risks and regulatory scrutiny surrounding them. Therefore, Dfns positioned itself as the most secure blockchain wallet infrastructure to earn the trust of the leading institutions navigating the complexities of crypto and integrating it into the financial system. Today, the institutionalization of the crypto is leading market growth, with players like BlackRock embracing Bitcoin.
In 2022, Further Ventures launched a $200 million fund dedicated to co-creating ventures focused on digital assets, fintech and supply chain. Backed by ADQ, Further Ventures partners with entrepreneurs as institutional co-founders to launch and grow new ventures, like Dfns, from ideation to exit.
Entrepreneurs and experienced executives who launch their venture with Further have access to product and engineering resources for concept development, seed capital required to take the business to Series A, and reserved capital for following on through multiple rounds of funding.
