By Samsung has been making some waves this last week. The latest from the South Korean electronics giant is its recent $2.9 million investment into the cryptocurrency hardware startup – Ledger.
As reported by the French business magazine, Capital on Wednesday, this new investment gives the startup a valuation of around $290 million. A Ledger spokesperson has confirmed that Samsung has indeed backed the startup, but declined to provide any further details. At the time of press, a Samsung representative did not respond to any requests for comments.
The news of this investment followings closely after Ledger promoted Pascal Gauthier to CEO and comes hot on the heels of previous funding rounds by the company which includes a $7 million Series A which took place in 2017 as well as a $75 million Series B in 2018. At this stage, it is unclear whether Samsung’s investment forms part of a larger funding round for Ledger.
Éric Larchevêque, Ledger’s previous CEO & co-founder confirmed the investment but declined to make any further statements, as reported by Capital. Furthermore, the ex-CEO all but confirmed the news to the public via Twitter, tweeting:
“We will always need hardware wallets, but to accompany a revolution crypto based on a personal sovereignty accessible to all, the smartphone will actually play a central role.”
As per Larchevêque’s Twitter bio, the former CEO now servers as Ledger’s executive chairman.
Samsung & Ledger – A Match Made In Heaven?
Ledger is currently hard at work with a number of banks and other firms to release a number of new custody options. The hardware company is said to be launching a custody venture by 2020 with the Japanese bank Nomura, and is also in collaboration with Hong Kong-licensed Legacy Trust to start offering custody services for those invested in ethereum-based tokens.
On the other end of the spectrum, Samsun has been making bold moves into the crypto and blockchain arenas.
With the release of the company’s new flagship Galaxy S10 series which includes crypto wallet functionality as well as the recent announcement of its own blockchain based on ethereum, it’s clear that Samsung has big plans for the crypto/blockchain arena.
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