Bitgo acquires Harbor digital securities platform

BitGo, the  digital asset financial services, has acquired Harbor, digital securities platform, and its broker-dealer and transfer agent subsidiaries. The acquisition extends BitGo’s capabilities to address a wider class of digital assets for institutional investors and provides a foundation for a full-stack digital assets solution. 

“Our vision has always been bigger than wallets and custody and acquiring Harbor furthers BitGo’s vision of building a new digital infrastructure for financial services,” said Mike Belshe, CEO, BitGo. “We believe participants will ultimately need trusted, full-stack solutions for digital currencies and now BitGo is well positioned to address institutional requirements as the market develops.”

“BitGo has been an important partner since Harbor inception. We’ve worked closely together to integrate BitGo Business Wallets and BitGo Custody into Harbor’s services,” said Josh Stein, CEO, Harbor. “Harbor provides BitGo with a complementary technology stack for the lifecycle of digital securities, as well as important service capabilities through our digital assets broker-dealer and transfer agent subsidiaries.”

BitGo provides institutional clients with security, custody, and liquidity solutions for digital assets. The acquisition of Harbor follows BitGo’s acquisition of Hedge, a leader in the scalable, programmatic deployment of staking infrastructure, which formed the foundation of BitGo Staking.

Harbor was formed in 2017 with the goal of becoming the one-stop shop platform for security token issuers and received investments from leading venture capital firms including Andreessen Horowitz, Craft Ventures, Fifth Wall, Valor Equity Partners and VY Capital. In November 2019, Harbor became a registered transfer agent with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), becoming the first blockchain company to be both a FINRA-registered broker-dealer and a SEC-registered transfer agent for digital assets.

"BitGo and Harbor have worked together on their shared commitment to build the digital asset infrastructure that traditional institutional investors need,” said Brad Greiwe, Co-Founder & Managing Partner, Fifth Wall. “The digital assets market needs trusted solutions and services which makes this acquisition both a perfect fit and a natural next step.”