Ken Griffin’s Citadel Securities Invests $200M in Crypto Exchange Kraken

Quick take:

• Kraken raised $600 million in September, announced as a $500 million funding and a $100 million raise.
• The latest fundraising values Kraken at $20 billion, up from $15 billion in September.
• The company also announced on Wednesday that it has privately filed for an IPO. 

Crypto exchange company, Kraken, has received $200 million investment from Kenneth Griffin’s Citadel Securities, bringing the total raised in the latest venture round to $800 million. The company said this is the second tranche for the round after announcing $500 million funding and a $100 million raise in September. 

The company said the new funding accelerates its strategy of bringing traditional financial products on-chain. 

The $200 million investment from Citadel was executed at a $20 billion valuation, which is $5 billion more than the $15 billion valuation announced during the fundraising in September. 

Jane Street, DRW Venture Capital, HSG, Oppenheimer Alternative Investment Management, and Tribe Capital were among the leading institutions participating in the overall funding, with a significant commitment from Kraken Co-CEO Arjun Sethi’s family office.

Kraken’s valuation growth isn’t far-fetched, after surpassing the $1.5 billion revenue figure of 2024 within the first three quarters in 2025. Its latest funding also follows its recent acquisition of the CFTC-licensed Designated Contract Market, Small Exchange for $100M, a move that accelerates its strategic entry into the U.S. derivatives markets space.

“This investment represents long-term conviction in Kraken’s mission to build trusted, regulated infrastructure for the open financial system,” said Sethi. “Our focus has always been straightforward: to create a platform where anyone can trade any asset, anytime, anywhere. The caliber of our new investors reflects both the scale of the opportunity ahead and the depth of alignment around how this infrastructure should be built.”

Earlier in the year, the company also announced the $1.5 billion acquisition of the U.S.-regulated Futures trading platform NinjaTrader.

On Wednesday, Kraken also disclosed it had confidentially filed with the SEC for an initial public offering, as initially speculated. It becomes the latest in a long list of crypto companies going public, following in the footsteps of the likes of eToro, Circle Internet, and Gemini, among others.

Stay on top of things:

Subscribe to our newsletter using this link – we won’t spam!

Follow us on X and Telegram.