Coinbase

Coinbase Global, Inc. operates a cryptocurrency exchange, brokerage and custody business for retail and institutional customers, along with wallet, staking and developer products. Brian Armstrong and Fred Ehrsam, a former Goldman Sachs foreign exchange trader, founded the company in 2012 and it went through Y Combinator's Summer 2012 batch. It was headquartered in San Francisco at the time of its listing. Armstrong is CEO and chair; Ehrsam left as president in January 2017, stayed on the board and cofounded crypto investment firm Paradigm.

Y Combinator provided an initial $150,000. In May 2013 Union Square Ventures, through partner Fred Wilson, led a $5 million Series A. In December 2013 Andreessen Horowitz led a $25 million Series B with Union Square Ventures and Ribbit Capital. In January 2015 Draper Fisher Jurvetson led a $75 million Series C that also included the New York Stock Exchange, USAA and several banks; the company's S-1 confirms a board seat elected by Series C holders designated by DFJ Growth 2013. The company later issued Series D and Series E preferred stock; in October 2018 it amended its investors' rights agreement with holders including Tiger Global Private Investment Partners XI, and all Series E shares converted into Class A common stock at the listing. The 2021 S-1 listed Andreessen Horowitz, Paradigm, Ribbit Capital, Tiger Global and Union Square Ventures as 5% holders.

Coinbase listed its Class A shares directly on Nasdaq under the ticker COIN on April 14, 2021, without raising primary capital. Nasdaq set a $250 reference price, implying a value of about $47 billion, and the stock closed its first day at $328.28. The S-1 reported 2020 total revenue of $1.28 billion and net income of $322.3 million, up from $533.7 million of revenue and a loss in 2019. Coinbase was added to the S&P 500 on May 19, 2025, and in 2025 it agreed to acquire the derivatives exchange Deribit for $700 million in cash plus about $2.2 billion in stock. It reported 2025 revenue of $7.18 billion and net income of $1.26 billion.

Coinbase is a case of venture investors reaching liquidity about nine years after the seed, through a direct listing that let existing holders sell without an underwritten offering. Union Square Ventures and Y Combinator entered in 2012 and 2013 at seed and Series A prices; Andreessen Horowitz built its position through the 2013 round and later secondary purchases disclosed in the S-1. Tiger Global, a 5% holder of Class A shares at the time of the S-1, came in through the late private financings, less than three years before the listing.