Huobi Japan Raises $4.6M for Expansion
The Japanese branch of cryptocurrency exchange Huobi has raised about $4.6 million in equity funding by issuing new shares to Japanese financial services company FPG Corporation.
Huobi has been working to expand for quite some time. Based in Singapore, the company has been opening offices worldwide since May 2018, starting with an expansion in Canada. Since then, the process of growth has chugged along steadily, reaching Brazil, the United States, a variety of targets in the Middle East and North African region, Southeast Asia and many others. This process has continued into October 2019, as Huobi has made moves into Turkey as well.
Amidst this expansion, Japan has been a particularly appealing target for Huobi. By first acquiring the regulated exchange BitTrade, a Japanese company, in September 2018, Huobi entered the Japanese market and vowed to “aggressively scale up the platform.” After some minor setbacks with this business development, Huobi Japan became a fully regulated exchange in January 2019. Despite receiving some scrutiny from regulators later that year, as did other exchanges, there currently does not seem to be any serious legal obstacle to Huobi Japan’s operations.
With this new windfall of cash, Huobi Japan also stated that its main strategy will be to “contribute to the digitalization of the Japanese securities market by integrating the company’s professional financial business know-how with our security-focused blockchain technology to provide new financial assets and payment methods.”
Huobi Japan announced the move noting that the raised funds will be put toward expanding its business.
Huobi has been working to expand for quite some time. Based in Singapore, the company has been opening offices worldwide since May 2018, starting with an expansion in Canada. Since then, the process of growth has chugged along steadily, reaching Brazil, the United States, a variety of targets in the Middle East and North African region, Southeast Asia and many others. This process has continued into October 2019, as Huobi has made moves into Turkey as well.
Amidst this expansion, Japan has been a particularly appealing target for Huobi. By first acquiring the regulated exchange BitTrade, a Japanese company, in September 2018, Huobi entered the Japanese market and vowed to “aggressively scale up the platform.” After some minor setbacks with this business development, Huobi Japan became a fully regulated exchange in January 2019. Despite receiving some scrutiny from regulators later that year, as did other exchanges, there currently does not seem to be any serious legal obstacle to Huobi Japan’s operations.
With this new windfall of cash, Huobi Japan also stated that its main strategy will be to “contribute to the digitalization of the Japanese securities market by integrating the company’s professional financial business know-how with our security-focused blockchain technology to provide new financial assets and payment methods.”
