Investment Firm Denies Involvement In Bitmain IPO Following Erroneous Media Reports

Singapore-based investment company Temasek has officially denied involvement in the cryptocurrency mining giant Bitmain’s Initial Public Offering (IPO), according to an official statement August 30.

Last month, media reported that Temasek was one of the key investors in the Bitmain pre-IPO funding round. The investment firm’s commitments for the pre-IPO allegedly totalled $560 million. In response to the reports, Temasek stated:

“We've seen commentary about an IPO involving a cryptocurrency company, Bitmain. Temasek is not an investor in Bitmain, and has never had discussions with, or an investment in Bitmain. News reports about our involvement in their IPO are false.”

As previously reported, Bitmain made claims to high-profile investors in its pre-IPO, claiming a $15 billion valuation in the beginning of August. The deal allegedly included participation of high-profile investors like Chinese tech conglomerate Tencent, investment firm DST Global, and Japan’s SoftBank, which owns a 15 percent stake in Uber.

Softbank has since denied its participation, having told Cointelegraph that reports of it backing Bitmain’s IPO were false. Kenichi Yuasa of the Corporate Communication Office of SoftBank Group Corp. stated that “neither the SoftBank Group Corp. nor the SoftBank Vision Fund were in any way involved in the deal.”

In late August, an anonymous source told Cointelegraph that DST Global had not participated in Bitmain’s $400 million funding round earlier this year. Upon a request for confirmation, John Lindfors, a managing partner at DST Global, said in an email to Cointelegraph that he “can confirm that DST has never invested in Bitmain.”

Despite statements to the contrary from DST global, verbiage in Bitmain’s pre-IPO investor deck suggests that investment from DST was “recently completed.” The document’s wording in the original Chinese is vague, making it possible to dispute the meaning. However, to the layperson or an uninitiated potential investor, the language would suggest that Bitmain had acquired funds from DST Global.

According to a Hong Kong news outlet AAStocks, Tencent also did not invest in Bitmain. Despite numerous requests for clarification, no one at Tencent has denied nor confirmed the investment to Cointelegraph.