Avalanche Foundation Eyes $1B Raise to Fund Two Crypto Treasury Companies: FT

The Avalanche Foundation aims to raise $1 billion to create two crypto treasury companies holding millions of AVAX tokens, the Financial Times reported on Thursday.

The AVAX tokens would be bought from the foundation, the non-profit group that oversees the Avalanche blockchain, at a discounted price, according to the report, which cited people familiar with the matter.

The foundation was in talks to raise up to $500 million through a private investment led by Hivemind Capital in an unidentified Nasdaq-listed company, with the aim of completing the deal by the end of the month, the FT said. Former White House press secretary Anthony Scaramucci was advising on the deal.

A second deal would create an AVAX treasury company via a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC).

There has been a plethora of publicly-listed companies pivoting to a crypto treasury strategy this year, seeking to emulate the approach of Michael Saylor’s Strategy (MSTR) which now holds nearly 640,000 BTC ($73 billion).

However, the cooling of the crypto bull market in August saw a lot of these companies’ shares take a hit, which may have dimmed enthusiasm for the model.

AVAX advanced nearly 8% in the last 24 hours, but has fallen around 2.1% since midnight UTC, while the broader crypto market as measured by the CoinDesk 20 Index is 0.65% higher.

The Avalanche Foundation did not respond to CoinDesk’s request for further comment.