Kraken will raise funds ahead of its IPO in 2026

What’s new? According to The Information, the leading US centralized crypto exchange (CEX) Kraken is raising about $500 million at a valuation of $15 billion. Earlier, it was reported that Kraken is working with Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan to raise up to $1 billion in debt financing ahead of a potential IPO in early 2026.

Material by The Information

What else is known? The proceeds will be used to expand the business, and the possibility of simultaneously raising equity capital is being considered. However, sources did not disclose the name of the lead investor in the round, the timing of the round, or whether there would be secondary sales in the round.

In October 2024, the exchange underwent a restructuring, resulting in Tribe Capital co-founder Arjun Sethi becoming co-CEO. The company’s revenue for the past year reached $1,5 billion, and for the first quarter of 2025, it reached $471,7 million.

In May, Kraken bought the NinjaTrader futures platform for $1,5 billion as part of a plan to expand its offerings. The deal gave the exchange’s US customers access to the traditional derivatives market.

In the same month, Kraken teamed up with tokenized securities issuer Backed and Solana Foundation to launch the xStocks brand. The project offers investors tokenized US stocks and exchange-traded fund (ETF) shares on the Solana blockchain.

In July, Kraken launched a brokerage platform for institutional cryptocurrency clients, announced the addition of support for seamless bitcoin staking in partnership with Babylon’s DeFi protocol. It also received a MiCA license from the Central Bank of Ireland to offer regulated services to residents of the 30 member states of the European Economic Area.

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Also in July, Kraken launched a peer-to-peer payments app called Krak for instant fund transfers in over 160 countries with support for 300+ assets including fiat, stablecoins and cryptocurrencies.

In addition, Kraken moved its headquarters to Cheyenne, the capital of Wyoming. The San Francisco headquarters had been closed since 2022 due to frequent attacks and harassment of employees. Later, it was reported that the FBI completed the investigation against Kraken founder Jesse Powell, which began in 2023, which was related to the hacking of the Verge Center for the Arts computers.

Back in October last year, Kraken launched its own Layer 2 (L2) Ink network based on Optimism’s Superchain. The project was supported by USDT issuer Tether, adding Ink support for its USDT0 omnichain stablecoin.

In June, the Ink Foundation announced the launch and airdrop of the INK native token, which will have a total supply capped at 1 billion coins. Kraken will also integrate Ink into all products ahead of the INK launch.

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Kraken is not the first crypto firm whose preparations for an IPO have become known recently. Thus, according to media reports, asset manager Grayscale, custodian BitGo and exchange Bullish are planning to go public. In June, USDC stablecoin issuer Circle went public on the NYSE under the ticker CRCL, and later applied for a banking license.