Abra (company)

Abra is a financial services and technology company that operates a cryptocurrency wallet service including a trading service for buying and selling cryptocurrencies, a high yield service for earning interest on cryptocurrencies and stablecoins and a lending services for borrowing against cryptocurrency collateral.[1]

Abra
TypePrivate
IndustryFinancial services
Founded2014
FounderBill Barhydt (CEO)
Headquarters
Mountain View, CA
,
U.S.
Area served
World
ServicesCryptocurrency wallet, exchange, yield and lending
Websiteabra.com

History

Abra was founded in 2014 in the Silicon Valley by Bill Barhydt, a former fixed income analyst for Goldman Sachs and former director of Netscape.[2][3]

Abra operates a cryptocurrency wallet with a built in crypto swap service called Abra Trade, a crypto lending service called Abra Borrow, and a crypto staking and high yield savings service called Abra Earn. The company claims they are serving over 1 million users with over $1.5 billion in assets under management.

In March 2018, Abra added support for 20 new cryptocurrencies including Litecoin, Bitcoin Cash and Stellar.[4]

As of March 2020 Abra provides trading and custody for over 120 different cryptocurrencies and over 10 cryptocurrencies in Abra Earn. Users may currently borrow up to $500,000 against their Bitcoin and Ethereum in Abra Borrow.

In September 2021 Abra announced that it had raised an additional $55M in Series C funding bringing its total raised to date to over $85M. Investors in the financing included American Express Ventures, Blockchain Capital, Kingsway Capital and CMT Digital Ventures.[5]

Abra and Barhydt started a series on YouTube entitled Money Talks, where he meets with some of the most famous and influential crypto leaders. These interviews have included Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin, MicroStrategy CEO and Bitcoin supporter Michael Saylor, Bitcoin Cash supporter Roger Ver, Zcash creator Zooko Wilcox, Bitwise CEO Hunter Horsley, and venture capitalists Tim and Adam Draper.

In June 2018, Abra was listed in The Wall Street Journal as one of the "Top 25 Tech Companies to Watch in 2018".[6]

In 2021 Forbes named Abra one of its next Billion-Dollar Startups.[7]

See also

References
  1. Abra. "Abra | Crypto Wealth Management". Abra. Retrieved 2022-03-17.
  2. Tepper, Fitz (10 September 2015). "Abra Raises $12M In Series A Funding For Its Bitcoin-Based Remittance Service". TechCrunch. Retrieved 11 March 2017.
  3. Eugenios, Jillian (9 June 2015). "Your bank account: The next thing to go obsolete". CNN. Retrieved 11 March 2017.
  4. "Abra adds 20 cryptocurrencies to its wallet app". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2018-07-12.
  5. Harty, Declan (2021-09-15). "Crypto wealth management startup Abra raises $55 million in heat of digital asset boom". Fortune. ISSN 2644-2906. Retrieved 2021-09-15.
  6. Pettit, Dave (2018-06-12). "WSJ Top 25 Tech Companies to Watch 2018". The Wall Street Journal. ISSN 0099-9660. Retrieved 2018-07-12.
  7. Feldman, Amy. "Next Billion-Dollar Startups 2021". Forbes. Retrieved 2022-02-04.
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