The France-based crypto hardware maker raised its initial Series C of $380 million in June 2021. The extension was done at the same valuation — about $1.4 billion — when taking into account currency conversion.

The round includes existing investors , , , , , , and new investors with , and .

Ledger’s main products are cold hardware wallets for digital assets, allowing the owner to have full custody and security over their assets.

The company currently says it secures more than 20% of the world’s cryptocurrencies and more than 30% of NFTs.

Founded in 2014, Ledger has raised $468 million, per Crunchbase.

“These funds will accelerate our mission to bring a new generation of secure consumer devices to hundreds of millions exploring critical digital assets and blockchain-enabled technology,” said , CEO and chairman, in a .

“As you know, 2022 was a trying year for the crypto industry, including the collapse of significant crypto exchanges and shifting macroeconomic conditions,” he added.

Crypto funding

Ledger was able to raise despite a very unfavorable funding environment in crypto currently.

While crypto prices are on the rise, the dramatic collapse of still hangs over the entire sector with several other lenders and exchanges having their own problems and issues.

Crypto funding for the current — almost over — first quarter is at a low ebb. So far, the quarter has seen less than $1 billion invested into VC-backed crypto startups in only 174 deals, per Crunchbase .

Compare that to last year at the same time when $6 billion of venture capital rolled to crypto startups in 426 deals.

It seems unlikely any quarter this year will match that.

Illustration:

Subscribe to the Crunchbase Daily

led the new capital infusion, a Series C, with participation from , , and .1

The round caught my eye for two reasons. First, it’s money invested in a French company. I can’t recall the last time we covered a French startup’s funding event. And, second, the firm shared an interesting bit of growth data. It went as follows, with a slight lead-in from myself:

[The company has a]chieved compound 3-digit revenue growth for 6 consecutive years.

That’s quite impressive. If a firm started with $1 million in revenue, for example, after six years of merely doubling it would have grown to $64 million in revenue by the end of the period. Given that the firm simply claims “3-digit” growth, the compounding effect could be even sharper, though we lack an initial revenue figure to lean upon for context.

Doubling is an activity that really adds up. Doubling for more than a half-decade is the sort of growth that investors covet. Recall that investors these days are always hunting for the fabled “triple-triple-double-double,” a startup that triples its revenue in each of two consecutive years, and then doubles twice over the next two.

A company starting with $1 million in revenue would have $36 million after completing its “TTDD.” That sort of growth is venture capital catnip.

Back to Akeneo, the firm has 180 employees in a half-dozen countries per its own reporting, and intends to “hire 100 additional staff in the next year.” That will quickly spike its burn rate, so the new capital is likely very welcome.

As a final note, Akeneo is an . It feels like these sorts of startups are not as common as we might have expected, a few years back. But after the huge , and Microsoft’s embrace of open source (not to mention its ), perhaps we’re seeing more momentum for companies that leverage open code.

Illustration: .