Middle East crypto exchange Rainfall secures $6m in funding

Rain Financial, operator of the Rain cryptocurrency exchange certified by the Central Lender of Bahrain, secured $6 million in funding in a round led by Middle East Venture Companions.

The company also received backing from US-based Coinbase, among the world's biggest cryptocurrency exchanges, Vision Ventures, CMT Digital Ventures, Abdul Latif Jameel FinTech Ventures, and the Dubai International Financial Centre's FinTech Fund, according to a statement issued on Sunday.

“We are confident our shareholders, who happen to be regional and intercontinental leaders, will support us as we continue steadily to drive towards our eyesight of reaching mass adoption of crypto-assets,” the business's four co-founders Abdullah Almoaiqel, AJ Nelson, Joseph Dallago and Yehia Badawy, said in a joint assertion.

Rain Financial was create in 2017 and received a licence to use as a crypto-asset brokerage by Bahrain's central lender in 2019. The company offers its consumers a way to buy and sell digital currencies together with custodian services to carry their assets.

Interest in digital currencies is picking up again as the cost of Bitcoin, the largest cryptocurrency by market benefit, has soared. Though it was trading 6.3 per cent lower at 7.04pm on the Bitstamp exchange on Sunday in $34,852.52, it has witnessed a near-fourfold increase in value over the past 12 months. One Bitcoin nowadays trades at 19-moments the dollar value of gold per ounce, down from an archive of 21.6x towards the end of last week.

“As crypto-assets continue steadily to grow and transform into a recognised asset course, regional retail and institutional shareholders alike desire a localised, safe and regulated fiat-to-crypto" exchange, MEVP junior spouse Riyad Abou Jaoudeh said.