Alan Howard leads $25 million investment in London crypto custodian Copper

British billionaire fund manager Alan Howard has led a $25 million investment in the London-based crypto custodian Copper.

The raise is an extension of Copper’s $50 million Series B raise, led by venture capital firms Dawn Capital and Target Global, which closed in May.

Howard, who set up and, until 2019, was CEO of the hedge fund Brevan Howard, has made a spate of investments in the crypto sector in 2021. His investments include British crypto payments app Bottlepay, Cologne-based neobroker Nextmarkets, recently launched crypto exchange Bullish Global and Komainu, the Jersey-regulated crypto custodian backed by Nomura.

“I am delighted to have the opportunity to support Copper. Their pioneering technology, particularly in the security and speed of cryptocurrency transactions, is essential for the traditional world to offer crypto products to their clients,” Howard said in a statement.

The additional funding will aid Copper in its efforts to help traditional financial institutions adopt crypto and distributed ledger technology (DLT), the company said in a press release.

Dmitry Tokarev, Copper’s CEO, said that big banks and custodians expanding into the crypto sector still face significant barriers, “particularly around the speed and security of trading.”

Copper’s signature product, ClearLoop, is a system that connects cryptocurrency exchanges together in a secure trading loop to enable instant, offline settlement of trades.