CI Financial Corp. has acquired a minority stake in Newton Crypto Ltd., a Canadian crypto asset trading platform.
The financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed.
The minority stake investment is part of a US$20 million series B funding round, which was completed on Feb. 4.
“We made this investment specifically to accelerate the timeline by which we can extend crypto trading capabilities to our wealth management clients,” CI president Darie Urbanky said in a press release Wednesday.
CI’s investment in Newton is a result of “a growing investor interest” in gaining access to crypto assets, which has a multi-trillion dollar marketplace, a spokesperson told Investment Executive.
“CI believes that our participation in crypto, whether through our cryptocurrency funds and ETFs or through trading, benefits clients by providing them with a trusted and secure way to gain exposure to these emerging asset classes,” the spokesperson said.
The spokesperson didn’t specify how specifically this investment accelerates the timeline of getting crypto trading capabilities to the firm’s wealth management clients, instead just stating that CI is partnering with “an innovator” and “a leader” in the crypto trading space with Newton.
“This investment and our introduction of a suite of cryptocurrency ETFs and mutual funds supports CI’s broad strategic objective of modernizing our asset management business,” the spokesperson said.
Last year, CI Global Asset Management launched its CI Ethereum Fund and CI Bitcoin Fund. Earlier this month, CI launched an ETF offering exposure to both Bitcoin and Ethereum.