Citadel Securities, the market creator of the hedge fund led by Ken Griffin, recently announced that a couple of VC firms have invested $1.15 billion. The firms that made the investment were Paradigm and Sequoia Capital, which brought the total valuation of the market maker at $22 billion.
Citadel Securities Has Been Climbing The Ladder
The partnership of Citadel Securities with Paradign, an investor focused on Web3- has signaled the company’s shift towards new asset classes similar to crypto. Sequoia, who did lead the earlier round with investment from Sequoia Heritage, along with Sequoia Global Equities and the Global Growth Fund, would also be receiving a seat on the board of directors, which would be filled by Alfred Lin, the partner of Sequoia.
According to the statement made by Citadel Securities, the funds would be used to improve its new products, markets, and regions. The CEO of the company Peng Zhao has stated that with the growing importance of technological innovation in financial markets, there are enormous opportunities to meet the needs of the clients across more products and markets. Incidentally, this would be helped with the partnership that has been building of Paradigm and Sequoia- putting the company in a far stronger position.
Traditionally, Ken Griffin has been quite a skeptic of crypto, even claiming that crypto was a call made impulsively because some individuals didn’t believe in the dollar just a few months ago. Now, despite the views displayed by the CEO of the parent hedge fund, Citadel Securities is definitely embracing its major expansion in the cryptocurrency industry.
