Digital asset custodian Hex Trust has raised US$88 million at the close of its Series B funding round.

The latest fundraise was led by Animoca Brands and Liberty City Ventures. Other participants included Ripple, Terra, Morgan Creek, Primavera Venture Partners, LeadBlock Partners, Eterna Capital, Sino Global Capital, Topaz, and New World Development chief executive officer Adrian Cheng.

Several blockchain companies also participated in the round including BlockFi, CoinList, Protocol Labs, Pulsar Trading, and Wintermute. Among the previous investors were QBN Capital, Kenetic Capital, HashKey Capital, Fenbushi Capital, Radiant Ventures, and Cell Rising.

Clifford Chance served as Hex Trust’s legal adviser while Imperii Partners was the financial adviser.

The latest funding includes US$61 million of primary capital and US$27 million from secondary investors.

Proceeds will be used to expand into Europe and the Middle East, obtain additional licences, continue the development of its proprietary platform Hex Safe, and further enhance new business services such as financing and structured solutions. Currently, Hex Trust has over 100 employees across offices in Hong Kong, Singapore, and Vietnam.

Alessio Quaglini, co-founder and CEO of Hex Trust, says: “It was a tremendous year of growth for Hex Trust and this funding round enables us to continue scaling and become a global leader in digital asset custody. As large institutions continue adopting digital assets at an increased pace, they need fully licensed custody services to meet compliance and regulatory standards. Our mission at Hex Trust remains the same: to stay ahead of the curve in terms of licensing and compliance, integrating the latest developments such as new protocols, DeFi (decentralized finance), NFTs (non-fungible tokens), GameFi (game finance), and the metaverse, and providing innovative services and financing solutions to enable our clients to monetize digital assets held in custody with us.”

In March 2021, Hex Trust became the first custodian to offer fully licensed support for NFTs. It announced a joint venture with Animoca Brands in November 2021 to provide ultra-secure digital asset wallets and financial services for online gamers. Hex Trust will provide its highly secure digital asset wallet technology and custody infrastructure to connect seamlessly with Animoca Brands’ blockchain-based games to support the growth of GameFi.

Hex Trust ventured into the metaverse in February 2022 by purchasing an “estate” in The Sandbox’s recent LAND (digital real estate) sale in the Web3 Zone. It also provided custody support for LAND in Hex Safe, allowing institutional investors and high-net-worth individuals to store their LAND assets with Hex Trust. Additionally, Hex Trust is creating services to buy and sell LAND, as well as innovative financing solutions including leasing LAND assets and virtual mortgages.

The company, fully licensed in Hong Kong and Singapore, boasts more than 200 institutional clients and over US$5 billion in assets under custody.