Recently, well-known financial media such as Bloomberg (Bloomberg) and Financial Times (FT) interviewed Amber Group and reported on Amber Group's latest measures in financing process, personnel adjustment, business operation, etc. in response to the drastic changes in the digital asset industry. .
It is reported that Amber Group is headquartered in Singapore, and its investors include Temasek Holdings Pte and Sequoia China. Amber was founded in 2018 by several former Morgan Stanley (Morgan Stanley) traders, and completed a financing of US$200 million in February this year, with a valuation of US$3 billion.
According to an anonymous person familiar with the matter interviewed by Bloomberg, Amber Group’s original planned new round of financing of US$100 million is divided into multiple parts, and part of it has already been obtained. The new round of financing will allow the unicorn company to continue to maintain a valuation of US$3 billion. However, due to the impact of the FTX incident on the industry, Amber Group has temporarily shelved the originally planned financing process. But he added that the company is now seeking another round of funding. However, Annabelle Huang, managing partner of Amber Group, mentioned in an interview with the Financial Times that Amber Group itself does not have the pressure to raise funds, and the company will announce the acquisition of a Singapore licensed company at the end of December.
At present, the digital currency market has fallen into a tense mood after being touched by the evaporation of 2 trillion in the market value of digital currency and following several major crashes led by FTX.
In response to online speculation that Amber Group may be the next domino, Amber Group has refuted the remarks. The company’s executives responded that the company is “business as usual” following a tweet by a blockchain data provider claiming that “Amber Group is facing bankruptcy based on analysis of cryptocurrency holdings and transfers.” It is reported that earlier than this, the official Twitter of Amber Group has published a series of tweets with a similar tone.
The Bloomberg article also wrote that people familiar with the matter said that Amber planned to complete layoffs and team adjustments in various offices around the world in November, but due to the continued downturn in the market, it had to continue to dynamically adjust the number of employees and team composition. Headcount has dropped to single digits. In this regard, an insider of AmberGroup said that because Amber Group's headquarters and most of its resources are located in Asia, Asia has always been the core market that Amber focuses on. Correspondingly, in view of market conditions, Amber will give priority to the development of key regions and businesses, focusing on providing first-class services to Amber's core customers, namely global high-net-worth and institutional customers, while reducing other expenditures that require long-term investment or uncertain development, such as Adjust the team, shelve the Metaverse project, and suspend the C-end business to focus on institutional and high-net-worth client services.
Due to the bankruptcy of the FTX exchange, the digital asset industry has entered a period of severe shocks. Amber has previously stated that its trading volume on FTX accounts for less than 10% of its total trading capital, and that the stranded funds do not pose a threat to its company's business operations.
Since the FTX incident, Amber's overall trading capital has shrunk, but business operations have not taken a hit, the person said. Annabelle Huang also emphasized in the interview that all operations of the company are normal, and FTX has not affected Amber's daily operations.
According to the official website of Amber Group, the transaction volume of the platform exceeds US$1 trillion and serves more than 1,000 institutional clients. In September, the company said it had cut 10% of its workforce.
