Samsung, Alphabet, BlackRock among 40 top firms investing in blockchain and crypto

Over the course of 71 rounds, 61 blockchain and cryptocurrency businesses received monies (Representative Image)

The biggest publicly traded companies to invest in blockchain and cryptocurrency companies between September 2021 and June 2022 include electronics giant Samsung, technology behemoth Alphabet, and investment management firm BlackRock, according to a study by crypto intelligence platform Blockdata.

According to statistics shared by Blockdata, a total of 40 major firms invested in companies belonging to the blockchain / crypto industry during the period. With 13 investments, Samsung was the most active investor, followed by UOB with seven, Citigroup with six, and Goldman Sachs with five.

Samsung, BlackRock, and Alphabet participated in the largest rounds

A breakdown of the rounds these firms participated in revealed that Alphabet, with $1.5 billion across four rounds, and BlackRock, with $1.1 billion across three rounds, were the biggest investors in the largest funding rounds.

Other notable businesses that invested in blockchain start-ups around the same time include Morgan Stanley, Samsung, Goldman Sachs, BNY Mellon, and PayPal.

The 40 firms spent almost $6 billion on these start-ups. However, because multiple investors participated in certain rounds, it was not clear how much each company contributed to each project.

Investment use cases

Over the course of 71 rounds, 61 blockchain and cryptocurrency businesses received monies. The firms are spread over 20 sectors, with 65 use cases. Several of these businesses operate in domains like gaming, distributed ledger technology (DLT), and the arts and entertainment.

Nineteen of the firms offer non-fungible token (NFT) solutions and services, 12 are marketplaces, some of which facilitate the exchange of NFTs; and eleven are gaming firms.

Businesses that provide NFT solutions, marketplaces, and gaming have a lot of use cases in common.