S&P Global led a $110 million Series B extension into Paris-based crypto data provider Kaiko on September 14, extending a round first closed at $53 million in June 2022. The investor syndicate — BNP Paribas, Nasdaq Ventures, Broadridge, Royal Bank of Canada, Coinbase Ventures, DRW Venture Capital...
"Reliable data would be absolutely critical to enable disintermediated contract execution" in future onchain capital markets. — Ambre Soubiran, CEO, Kaiko
S&P Global led a $110 million Series B extension into Paris-based crypto data provider Kaiko on September 14, extending a round first closed at $53 million in June 2022. The investor syndicate — BNP Paribas, Nasdaq Ventures, Broadridge, Royal Bank of Canada, Coinbase Ventures, DRW Venture Capital, Susquehanna Private Equity Investments, and others — reads like a roster of institutions that move trillions of dollars through traditional financial plumbing daily.
The deal is the latest in a rapid consolidation cycle that has reshaped crypto's data infrastructure in under four months. Between May and September 2026, three transactions collectively reorganized the sector: Kaiko acquired DeFi infrastructure firm Cometh (May 20), then U.S. derivatives-data provider Amberdata (June 2), and Blockworks purchased Messari for a reported $10 million — a 97% discount to its $300 million Series B valuation four years prior. Meanwhile, Pyth Network launched its Data Marketplace in April and signed Nasdaq as a distribution partner in June, routing TotalView depth-of-book equity data through blockchain infrastructure for the first time.
The combined picture: traditional finance is not merely investing in crypto. It is funding the data rails that institutional capital requires before it can operate onchain at scale. The financial data services market stands at an estimated $30.5 billion in 2026, according to Research Nester, with Bloomberg alone generating roughly $14.4 billion in annual revenue. Crypto data providers are positioning to capture a growing slice of that market as tokenized assets proliferate.
Kaiko, founded in Paris in 2014, covers more than 150 exchanges and blockchain protocols, serving 250-plus institutional clients after its recent acquisitions. The $110 million Series B extension brings cumulative funding to $187 million since 2021.
The investor composition is the signal. S&P Global — owner of S&P Dow Jones Indices and a $30.5 billion market data incumbent — led the round. Cathy Clay, CEO of S&P Dow Jones Indices, stated the investment reflects "strong belief in the long-term viability of digital asset markets." The two firms had already launched the S&P Kaiko Digital Asset Indices and, in March 2026, tokenized the iBoxx U.S. Treasuries Index together.
Joining S&P: BNP Paribas (Europe's largest bank by assets), Nasdaq Ventures (operator of exchanges listing $26 trillion in equity market capitalization), Broadridge (processes over $10 trillion in securities transactions daily), Royal Bank of Canada (Canada's largest bank), and Coinbase Ventures. Existing investors Anthemis, Point Nine, and Revaia also participated.
New investors joined a Strategic Industry Working Group chaired by Kaiko, focused on developing data standards for tokenized financial instruments. Kaiko announced it would use the capital to strengthen its core market data operations and expand infrastructure for onchain capital markets.
The company also joined ISDA as a member in April 2026, signaling an intent to operate within the derivatives infrastructure standards that govern the $700 trillion notional OTC derivatives market.
Kaiko executed its fourth and fifth acquisitions in rapid succession during spring 2026:
Cometh (acquired May 20, 2026): A MiCA-licensed DeFi infrastructure provider specializing in smart-contract wallets, account abstraction, and cross-chain integrations. Cometh holds CASP license AMF No. A2025-008 (granted December 2025) and ISO 27001:2022 certification. Combined with Kaiko's BMR authorization and SOC 1/SOC 2 attestations, the merged entity holds a regulatory authorization profile that no other independent crypto data provider currently matches. Financial terms were not disclosed.
Amberdata (acquired June 2, 2026): A Miami-based firm providing derivatives analytics, on-chain data, and AI-powered research tools. The key asset: the GVOL options analytics platform, which Kaiko described as "one of the most requested capabilities from institutional clients." The acquisition creates what Kaiko calls "the only regulated and independent data and analytics, indices, and data infrastructure company for digital assets."
The combined entity now spans: tick-level trade data, regulated benchmark pricing, derivatives analytics, options intelligence, smart-contract infrastructure, and index products — a stack that increasingly mirrors what Bloomberg, Refinitiv (LSEG), and FactSet provide for traditional markets.
On June 11, 2026, Blockworks acquired Messari for a reported $10 million. Messari had raised $35 million in its Series B at an approximate $300 million valuation in 2022. The 97% valuation compression reflects the broader repricing of crypto-native businesses during the 2025-2026 downturn, when Bitcoin fell from $126,000 in October 2025 to $67,000 by mid-June 2026.
Blockworks, valued at $192 million after its April 2026 Series A extension, generates an estimated $30 million-plus in annual revenue across media, research, data, and events. Messari brings 40,000-plus asset coverage with APIs spanning markets, protocols, and governance data.
Jason Yanowitz, co-founder of Blockworks, described the acquisition as "connecting the two sides of the market" — issuers maintaining records through the platform and investors, exchanges, and regulators consuming that data through research, APIs, and automated workflows. The thesis: crypto's data layer will consolidate the way traditional financial information services did, into a small set of dominant platforms comparable to S&P Global, Moody's, FactSet, and Bloomberg. Yanowitz specifically cited AI agents as "among the fastest-growing consumers of this data."
While Kaiko and Blockworks consolidate through M&A, Pyth Network is building a distribution layer that inverts the traditional data model: instead of crypto data flowing to traditional terminals, traditional financial data flows onto blockchain infrastructure.
On April 9, 2026, Pyth launched its Data Marketplace with six institutional publishers: Euronext, Fidelity Investments, OTC Markets Group, SGX FX, Tradeweb, and Exchange Data International. These firms collectively facilitate trillions of dollars in daily trading volume. At launch, the marketplace featured institutional-grade datasets including spot FX, precious metals, crude swaps, and reference datasets across equities, ETFs, fixed income, and derivatives.
On June 30, 2026, Nasdaq signed on, distributing its TotalView full depth-of-book equity data via Pyth — the first time a major exchange has routed its flagship market data product through blockchain infrastructure. TotalView covers every displayed order and quote for securities trading on Nasdaq, NYSE, and regional exchanges, including Net Order Imbalance Indicators for opening and closing auctions.
The competitive target is explicit. The traditional financial data market generates $30.5 billion annually in 2026, projected to reach $59 billion by 2035 at an 8.6% CAGR, according to Research Nester. Bloomberg holds approximately 33% market share. Pyth is positioning to route a portion of that data through programmable interfaces rather than proprietary terminals and dedicated feeds.
The crypto data market has stratified into distinct tiers:
Institutional-Grade (Regulated):
Media-Data Hybrids:
Onchain Distribution:
Retail-Focused:
Compliance/Screening:
The institutional tier is where the consolidation is occurring. Kaiko and Blockworks are both explicitly pursuing the "crypto Bloomberg" thesis — building vertically integrated platforms that combine data, analytics, indices, and distribution. They are approaching it from opposite ends: Kaiko from regulated data infrastructure, Blockworks from media and research.
Three forces are converging to make data infrastructure a prerequisite for the next phase of institutional crypto adoption:
1. Tokenized Assets Require Pricing Infrastructure. NYSE parent ICE's infrastructure deal with Securitize, Nasdaq's SEC-approved pilot for tokenized stocks and ETFs, and the S&P Kaiko tokenized iBoxx Treasuries Index all point to the same requirement: tokenized securities need the same reference pricing, benchmark, and analytics infrastructure that traditional securities have. Without it, institutional portfolio managers, risk teams, and compliance officers cannot price positions, calculate NAVs, or generate regulatory reports.
2. Regulatory Frameworks Demand Auditable Data. MiCA in Europe, the CLARITY Act moving through the U.S. Senate, and similar frameworks in Asia all impose data integrity, reporting, and benchmark requirements on crypto service providers. Kaiko's stacking of BMR authorization, MiCA licensing, SOC attestations, and ISDA membership is a direct response to this. Gartner estimates 25% of Global 2000 companies will run blockchain in production by end of 2026, up from 11% in 2024; each of those deployments requires compliant data feeds.
3. AI Agents Consume Market Data Programmatically. Blockworks' Yanowitz identified AI agents as a fast-growing data consumer. According to a recent webthreepedia analysis, AI agents now account for 19% of DeFi transaction volume. Autonomous trading systems require continuous, machine-readable market data feeds — precisely the product that Kaiko, Pyth, and the consolidated data providers are building.
The crypto data layer is consolidating at a pace not seen since Thomson Reuters' acquisitions assembled Refinitiv in the 2000s. In under four months, three transactions reorganized an industry that barely existed five years ago. The participants are telling: S&P Global, Nasdaq, BNP Paribas, and Fidelity are not speculating on token prices. They are funding the infrastructure required to operate in markets where tokenized Treasury bills, equities, and derivatives trade alongside native crypto assets.
The $30.5 billion traditional financial data market has been dominated by Bloomberg, S&P Global, LSEG/Refinitiv, and FactSet for decades. Kaiko, Blockworks, and Pyth are each positioning to serve the tokenized extension of that market — where assets settle onchain but still require pricing, risk analytics, compliance screening, and benchmark rates to function within regulated portfolios.
The open question is not whether crypto needs its own Bloomberg. It does. The question is whether the winner will be a crypto-native firm that earns institutional credentials — as Kaiko is attempting — or a traditional data incumbent that extends its existing franchise onchain, as S&P Global's investment in Kaiko and partnership with Pyth both suggest it is hedging toward.
For now, the capital is flowing. $110 million from S&P Global says the picks-and-shovels trade in crypto has moved from exchanges and custody to data.