Benzinga | Sep 21, 2021 05:34PM EDT

Goldman Sachs And Coinbase Back Crypto Fund Manager One River Digital

Startup crypto fund manager One River Digital Asset Management -- backed by billionaire hedge fund manager Alan Howard -- closed funding from investors including Goldman Sachs Group Inc (NYSE:GS) and Coinbase Global Inc. (NASDAQ:COIN).

What Happened: According to a Tuesday Bloomberg report, Coinbase and Goldman Sachs acquired minority stakes after participating in the $41 million Series A funding round valuing One River Digital Asset Management at $186 million.

Other participants include insurer Liberty Mutual Group Inc. and London investment firm Infinity Investment Partners.

Howard provided the firm with seed funding last year.

Eric Peters, One River Digital's founder and chief executive officer, said that the asset management industry will "transition to the tokenized world" where "the opportunity is so much bigger."

In an attempt to capitalize on this transition, One River Digital Asset Management currently manages one Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC) fund and another Ethereum (CRYPTO: ETH) fund alongside a more recent fund opened by Peters that invests in Solana (CRYPTO: SOL).

Now he is planning to launch an Ethereum staking din and a cryptocurrency lending vehicle that pays out in dollars.

Furthermore, One River Digital Asset Management is also developing an index including only the cryptocurrencies that meet the institutional requirements for liquidity, security and decentralized ownership and function.

The firm was founded in 2020 as a subsidiary of One River Asset Management and has since cashed in $1.25 billion and returned the money to investors. Its crypto funds currently hold about $500 million.

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay