Anchorage launched as a digital asset custodian for institutional investors. The startup has raised $17 million in a Series A round led by Andreessen Horowitz, with participation from Khosla Ventures, PayPal co-founder Max Levchin’s SciFi VC, and individual investors Mark McCombe of Blackrock, among others.
The company’s description of the crypto custody design focuses on providing digital asset security without cold storage because of its limitations such as vulnerabilities to human error and inaccessibility. This inaccessibility means digital assets are slow to move and can’t be used to capture yield, which can lead to depreciation due to dilution over time.
Anchorage’s system is engineered to solve digital asset security, and designed to extend all the benefits of traditional custody such as asset accessibility, including capturing yield from staking and inflation, voting, auditing proof of existence, and fast transactions.
This crypto-native custody combines multi-person integrity with hardware-based systems for a platform that is more secure than cold storage, but has the benefits of keeping the assets accessible.