Coin Metrics has raised $15 million in a Series B investment round led by Goldman Sachs.

“We think this is a huge day for us,” Tim Rice, a co-founder and the firm’s chief executive officer said. “A huge credentialization.”

While Castle Island Ventures, Highland Capital Partners, Fidelity Investments, Avon Ventures, Communitas Capital, and Collab+Currency increased their investment in the company, new investors to join included Acrew Ventures, Morningside Group, BlockFi, and Warburg Serres Investments.

Founded in 2017, Coin Metrics is a cryptocurrency and blockchain data provider to institutional clients which plans to use the proceeds to grow in Europe and Asia, create new products and expand its current offerings.

Mathew McDermott, global head of digital assets for Goldman Sachs’s global markets division, will join Coin Metrics’ board of directors, Rice said in an interview.

According to Rice, the way large institutions such as asset managers and Wall Street banks are approaching crypto is different from the 2017 bull market as “This time around you have people looking for a holistic data solution,” he said. “They need to have solid data to get into the asset class.”

Fidelity Investments, one of Coin Metrics’ investors, is also its client. “We’ve definitely seen the institutions behave very seriously; they’re now signing contracts with us,” Rice said.

Banks that have been staying on the sidelines are also getting comfortable with the $2.47 trillion market.

“Customer demand is starting to pull them in,” Rice said.

Earlier this week, we reported that the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the US, Coinbase, also acquired data analytics platform Skew for an undisclosed amount to better serve its institutional and trading clients.

Money has been pouring into the crypto market amidst the ongoing bull run. Not just crypto assets but projects like Digital Asset Holdings LLC, Chainalysis Inc, Blockchain.com, Paxos Trust Co. are raising a lot of funds.

As of April 27, 156 startups focused on digital technology had raised $3.1 billion, compared to just $2.3 billion raised in 341 deals for all of 2020, according to CB Insights.

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