Liquid, a cryptocurrency marketplace system operated by Quoine Pte. Ltd., has shared the initial close of an ongoing, undisclosed Series C funding round which the organization claims has brought its valuation “to over US$1 billion” and established itself as one of only two tech unicorns in Japan. Liquid system, Quoine Mike Kayamori, co-founder and CEO of Quoine, told TechCrunch that the plan was to add more investors. “This round will be purely strategic. We want to get traditional, mainstream [investors] on board,” he explained. Kayamori declined to reveal exactly how much has been secured or the exact valuation of the organization. The round of funding was led by investment firm IDG Capital, with participation from Bitmain Technologies, the world’s largest manufacturer of cryptocurrency mining rigs, Liquid noted on Wednesday. The organization explained the latest capital will be used to fuel international expansion, for product development of its core trading trading platform business, and to enter the security token market. “As we enter into a recent age of digital disruption in financial offerings, consumers are increasingly placing a higher value on digital assets and technologies they can trust and use with greater ease,” Kayamori explained in a media statement. “Our vision is to make financial offerings accessible to all, which means bringing more people into the digital asset space so that anyone can be a part of it. This first round of Series C funding from our two highly respected investors, IDG Capital and Bitmain, puts us in an incredibly strong position to make a international impact in 2019.” Quoine previously obtained US$20 million in venture capital from Japanese investment firms JAFCO, SBI, B Dash Ventures, Mistletoe, and ULS Group. In 2017, the enterprise conducted an initial coin offering (ICO) which gathered US$105 million. Founded in 2014 in Japan, Quoine is a crypto startup with offices in Tokyo, Singapore, and Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. Quoine’s Liquid product is a cryptocurrency service promising top security and high liquidity. Released in September 2018, Liquid provides trading, trading platform and other related offerings powered by blockchain technology. The Liquid roadmap includes Liquid Black, an upgraded account status with special privileges and benefits, a Liquid mobile app with full trading and marketplace capabilities, and the release of the alpha version of the Liquid Blockchain. Quoine is currently in the process of applying for a formal banking license to expand its range of offerings.